Healthcare

Comical Weapon: Sarah Palin/Fox News Cling To ‘Death Panel’ Lies

Posted by on September 10, 2013 at 11:20 am. 2 Comments :

You have to give Sarah Palin credit for perseverance. It was four years ago that Palin invented the notion that the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) contained an ominous provision for something she called “Death Panels.” At the time she was referring to a section of the bill that provided reimbursement for end-of-life counseling, a service that enabled people to discuss with their doctors the measures they would want taken in the event they were gravely ill and unable articulate their wishes. Palin’s “Pants-on-Fire” mutilation of that simple and useful proposal was designated as the “Lie of the Year” by PolitiFact. And yet, she continues to peddle the same turd-o-licious deceit in a new video (below) aimed at raising money for her struggling Super PAC. And, as usual, she can count on the truth manglers at Fox Nation to help her to promote these time-worn fallacies.

Fox Nation - Sarah Palin

Palin introduces her video with a particularly offensive conflation of her death panel lie and the current crisis in Syria: “Enough of this foreign fiasco distraction. Get back to work. It is time to bomb Obamacare.” Not only is she revisiting her weary untruths, she is resorting to terrorist rhetoric. Her desire to “bomb” ObamaCare, in this context, both belittles the horror of actual bombings by the Assad regime, at the same time as it creates images of the destroyed lives (both medically and financially) of the people who would suffer without access to the medical services that ObamaCare provides. Palin, and her Tea Party, cohorts couldn’t care less about the well-being of Americans who are unable to purchase insurance from greedy corporations who exclude anyone with costly illnesses or preexisting conditions. Just as she couldn’t care less about the victims of atrocities in Syria.

It’s pretty funny, however, that most of the video recounts all of the criticism heaped on her for her desperate and obvious falsehoods. There are clips of President Obama, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Joe Biden, and Fox’s Bob Beckel, all pointing out that she was full of Grade-A Crapola. Then, in an attempt to claim that she was right all along, she spins her original claim about end-of-life counseling to one addressing the ACA’s Independent Payment Advisory Board. This, of course, is another lie because the IPAB is just a process to maintain high standards and low cost for medical reimbursements. The section of the ACA that refers to the IPAB says explicitly that “The proposal shall not include any recommendation to ration health care.” And then Palin has the gall to close her video by saying “Why wasn’t there just more honesty through this whole process.” Why indeed, Sarah?

This video is nothing more than a transparent and self-serving effort to fill the coffers of her PAC. She makes no attempt to validate her spurious allegations, although she does include dog-whistle imagery designed to make her dimwitted disciples salivate, such as a series of posters labeling Obama a socialist. It’s the same old tired smear tactics that contributed to her electoral defeat in 2008. But after failing at reality television, films, books, etc., she has nothing left but to fall back on the schemes that once helped her to fleece the far-right fools who make up her fan base.

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The Stupid Burns: Fox News SHOCKED That State Health Care Programs Aren’t Called “ObamaCare”

Posted by on September 2, 2013 at 12:03 pm. 19 Comments :

Ever since Barack Obama was elected President, Fox News has endeavored to sabotage his administration with insults and brazenly dishonest characterizations of his policies. They have referred to him as lazy, ignorant, and ineffectual, while simultaneously portraying him as a persistent, evil, genius, working hard and successfully at destroying the country.

Setting aside the obvious paradox in those contrasting descriptions, one of Fox’s proudest achievements was the labeling of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as “ObamaCare.” It was an attempt to hang the legislation that was a product of a fractured congress around the President’s neck, and was clearly meant derogatorily. The President later adopted the name as an affirmation that he does indeed care about Americans having access to health care. However, now Fox is pretending that “ObamaCare” is some sort of official title, and that avoidance of it is tantamount to a snub.

Fox News
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The absurdity of this criticism is mind-boggling on multiple levels. First of all, the name “ObamaCare” was the creation of the President’s foes and is in no way official. It would be like expecting GOP-controlled states to call their photo-ID laws, the Voter Suppression Act (although that, at least, would be accurate).

Secondly, the fact that states are creating names like MNsure, Vermont Health Connect, California Covered, etc., is evidence that refutes one of the biggest Tea-publican myths about the ACA – that it is a big-government, federally controlled program. In fact, the ACA is just an insurance reform that permits states to create their own system of exchanges that offer health coverage to people who cannot get it from their employer or other private provider.

The ACA’s exchanges are entirely implemented at the state level, which is something that conservatives ought to be celebrating. Instead, they invent lies about Washington intruding on the jurisdiction of the states. But this complaint about how the states name their programs is an ironic example of the right inadvertently admitting their own lies. The states obviously have the right to control their own affairs, and if they choose not to use a name that was invented by anti-health care activists, it is within their power to do so.

It is notable that this epically idiotic article is the product of Fox News, not its lie-riddled affiliate Fox Nation (whose dishonesty is documented in Fox Nation vs. Reality). And the embarrassment of an allegedly serious news operation spewing such nonsense is even more pronounced when Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is cited as the source for the story. The Journal included a couple of telling examples of insurance consumers. One was a rather moronic Tea-publican who was opposed to his own self-interests:

“The all-Minnesota marketing of the insurance plan didn’t persuade Andrew De Jong, a 25-year-old volunteer in the Minnesota Republican Party’s state-fair booth who said he currently works at a ‘bunch’ of part-time jobs that don’t offer him insurance. He said he has no plans to look for coverage on MNsure because he opposes Obamacare.”

What a brainiac. He would reject even exploring potentially valuable benefits because of his anti-Obama indoctrination. And then there was the liberal who made quite a bit more sense based on actual facts:

“Mr. Schauer, a part-time student, also works part-time as a park-and-water patrolman at the Dakota County Sheriff’s office, where he doesn’t qualify for employer-based health insurance. He said he broke his arm last winter in a snowboarding accident and was motivated to keep coverage. The MNsure calculator estimated he would pay about $65 a month for coverage with tax credits. ‘I figured it would be higher,’ he said.”

The summations by these two prospective health insurance consumers pretty much says it all. Conservatives blindly reject things they’ve been told to reject without any thoughtful consideration. Liberals weigh the facts and arrive at conclusions that best meet their needs.

As for Fox News, they just continue to make up phony issues and disseminate them to their undiscerning audience. Their well established goal is to make ObamaCare fail by discouraging people from enrolling in the exchanges, even if that means they are left unable to seek care if they need it, or driving them into bankruptcy because of their lack of coverage. This was explicitly stated by a Republican quoted in the Wall Street Journal article who said flatly that “We want to keep people out of the exchanges so they will fail.”

Notice that they don’t want to keep people out of the exchanges because they don’t work. They want to keep people out so that the program fails, which, of course, would mean that Americans who choose to participate would be left without options to seek necessary, perhaps life-saving, medical attention. That’s what they must mean by “compassionate conservatism.”

Sarah Palin Can’t Help Making A Buffoon Of Herself (With Help From Fox News)

Posted by on August 10, 2013 at 2:23 pm. 7 Comments :

Sarah Palin appeared on the Fox News Saturday program “Cashin’ In” to discuss her twisted perceptions of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), and the imaginary “death panels” she is obsessed with.

Palin was asked by wingnut host Eric Bolling if she felt vindicated by the presence of some Democrats who have come forward to criticize certain aspects of the law. Palin answered by mistakenly saying that “I don’t think we should condone them.” What she meant to say was that she didn’t want to “condemn them,” because she appreciated their position.

Setting aside that malaprop, Palin insisted that “There are, of course, death panels” in the law that she called “evil.” However, when asked what she thought the motives were of the critical Democrats, she went completely off the rails:

Palin: It’s black and white, in the law, that there will be rationing of health care. They couldn’t go forever in not acknowledging that or they would look like complete buffoons, and they would be deemed incompetent having not read the law to understand that death panels are a part of this atrocity.

If not reading the law makes you an incompetent buffoon, then Palin is at the head of her class. This is what the law actually says about the Independent Advisory Board about which Palin and Bolling were talking:

“The proposal shall not include any recommendation to ration health care.”

It’s right there in black and white. The law explicitly prohibits rationing. Of course, Fox News will never let their viewers know that. But they did accidentally provide evidence of the dishonesty of their death panel fallacy. At the outset of this trumped up issue, Palin was referring to end-of-life counseling sessions which, in her dementia, meant death panels. In fact, they were merely opportunities for people to consult with their doctors about what sort of treatment they would want in the event of a catastrophic illness that left them unable to express themselves. After it became clear that Palin had miserably misinterpreted this provision of the law, she switched the complaint to the Independent Advisory Board (which she also misinterpreted), and pretended that that was her complaint all along. Well, Bolling’s graphic proves otherwise.

Fox News

Even after showing this graphic referring to end-of-life-counseling, their discussion covered only the unrelated Independent Advisory Board. If there is one thing you can say about Fox News, it’s that it is a network where incompetence and buffoonery runs rampant.

Fox News Doctor’s Fatal Misdiagnosis Of Bush’s Heart Surgery Wake-Up Call

Posted by on August 6, 2013 at 4:30 pm. 6 Comments :

“Former President George W. Bush, 67, underwent a procedure Tuesday morning to have a stent placed in his heart one day after a blockage was discovered in an artery, according to a statement from his office. […] President Bush’s experience is a wake-up call for all of us.”

Indeed it is. That was the response of Dr. Marc Siegel of the Fox News Medical A Team to news that Bush had emergency heart surgery to repair a life-threatening blockage.

Fox News
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The problem with Siegel’s response, however, is that his idea of a wake-up call is a useless gesture for many Americans. Siegel’s advice to “see your doctor for a physical” is sound on its face. But if you are uninsured, the costs associated with an office visit and the battery of tests required to ascertain your health status are prohibitive.

Siegel noted that Bush underwent a stress test with an EKG and a CT angiogram. Having discovered a coronary artery blockage, he was immediately admitted and scheduled for surgery. Bush, of course, is a former president and member of a wealthy family. How is an average American without insurance supposed to pay for all of that? And after the emergency care, who springs for the pharmaceuticals that would be required for the rest their life?

Bush, his family, and most Americans are grateful that his medical scare was resolved and that he will resume a normal lifestyle. But insofar as his experience was a wake-up call, it was an alarm sounding to address the shameful lack of health care for so many citizens in such a rich nation. ObamaCare is a step toward providing that care, but it is people like Dr. Siegel who are throwing obstacles in the way.

Siegel frequently appears on Fox News to denounce the Affordable Care Act and the President for advocating it. He called the Supreme Court ruling upholding ObamaCare a “disappointment.” He spins phony horror stories about death panels, doctor shortages, and unfounded claims of higher premiums and fewer services. Although, how you get to fewer than zero (as was the case for 45 million pre-ObamaCare citizens), I don’t know.

In Siegel’s world everyone should consider getting regular checkups and preventative care, but it should only be available for those fortunate enough to be able to afford it. In other words. Bush’s experience is a wake-up call to financially secure folks like Bush. But it’s a snooze button for millions of others about whom Siegel doesn’t appear to give a damn.

Stephen Colbert On The Tea Party Burning ObamaCare Cards That Don’t Exist

Posted by on July 30, 2013 at 5:00 pm. 2 Comments :

The Tea-publican brain trust is at it again. It’s not enough that they campaigned feverishly to prevent the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) from becoming law; followed by an eye-popping 40 useless, symbolic votes in the House of Representatives to repeal the law; followed by Republican-led states refusing to participate in the health exchanges, transferring responsibility to the federal government they claim to hate; followed by efforts to intimidate schools, libraries, and sports teams from helping to educate Americans about a program that is available to them that can save money and even lives. And of course, Fox News is at the forefront of this festival of disinformation.

Fox News
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Nope. None of that was enough. So now they are embarking on a coordinated campaign to convince people that they should not sign up for ObamaCare when it becomes available. That’s right…If you are a young person with no health care, a family with over-priced private insurance, a patient with a preexisting condition, a senior on a fixed income, the GOP thinks you should forgo the benefits to which you are entitled and risk having expensive medical costs keep you from getting necessary care, or drive you into bankruptcy. Nice of them isn’t it.

The centerpiece of their campaign is a program to get people to burn their ObamaCare cards. There’s just one problem with that – as Stephen Colbert reveals, there is no such thing as ObamaCare cards. But never fear, the folks at the Koch-funded Tea Party asylum, FreedomWorks, are planning to make their own cards which will be suitable for burning. Watch Colbert spell out out the whole process works:

This is so typical of how the right works. Their most fervent desire is to see people suffer, rather than adjust their demented viewpoints. That’s true with regard to health care. It’s true with regard to the economy and jobs. It’s true with regard to foreign policy. And it’s really kind of depressing that so many people fall for it. Thank goodness for Colbert whose perspective on this sort of lunacy can bring laughter back into the debate, along with a big scoop of wisdom.

The Fox News Campaign To Keep Citizens From Learning About ObamaCare

Posted by on June 29, 2013 at 12:32 pm. 23 Comments :

We all know about the Republican support for a health care system that gouges patients, fails to serve at-risk constituencies, and enriches heartless corporations (who in turn enrich the Republicans). We know about the right-wing’s indifference to families who are thrust into bankruptcy due to exorbitant medical bills. And we are all too aware of the Tea Party conservatives’ fixation on repealing the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), which they have voted on thirty-seven times in the House of Representatives knowing full well it would never advance to the senate.

There is no ambiguity in the fact that the GOP is determined to defend a broken system that favors the rich and abandons everyone else to a Randian law of the jungle that guarantees that people will die unnecessarily. And Fox News is a critical component in the anti-health propaganda fest designed to keep the American people ignorant and sick.

Fox News
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In recent days Fox News has been escalating their disinformation campaign by attacking uncontroversial plans to give the American people information about their options under the new law and to educate them about the health insurance exchanges that will be launching next year. Fox has taken the side of the GOP anti-health zealots by criticizing routine efforts to provide the public with details about the program.

Reports that the Department of Health and Human Services is seeking to publicize the availability of insurance plans by advertising and otherwise partnering with sports leagues, libraries, and schools have been met with ludicrous objections from the right. They have characterized these efforts as communist-style indoctrination and tyrannical coercion, even though they are nothing more than free market publicity. Fox News anchor Bret Baier went so far as to call it “threatening.”

Bret Baier: Forget reading, writing and arithmetic, you are paying about a million dollars to train public school children in California how to promote President Obama’s health care reform law. […] Officials are promising – or threatening – strict enforcement of the grants with monthly, quarterly, and annual reports.

Holy crap! Now the feds want reports to ascertain whether federal grant money is being used effectively. What’s next, concentration camps?

Other plans being discussed include working with the NFL and the NBA to educate citizens about their options. This has been lambasted by right-wingers on Fox who seem to think that providing information to citizens about programs that they are entitled to use is the work of Satan. They call it propaganda, but it is no more propaganda than public service announcements about seat belts or the dangers of drug use.

The only propaganda here is that employed by Fox News who is trying desperately to misrepresent ObamaCare and the efforts to educate the public about it. Their arguments against publicity campaigns that work with sports leagues, schools, and libraries, consist mainly of phony attempts to turn it all into a political debate. However, ObamaCare is not a political debate – it is the law. And consequently, people are entitled to know what it is and how to use it. There is nothing partisan about that.

What Fox and the GOP are hoping to do is to sabotage the new health care law. They want it to fail (like everything else this administration tries to do) so that they can achieve their goal of repeal and restore the previous system that made them all rich, but that left millions of Americans without coverage. And the best way to produce failure is to make sure that the American people are kept ignorant of the program, which would keep enrollment down. So any effort by the government to let the people know what their options are must be shot down by any means necessary.

This campaign of deceit by Fox and their benefactors is meant only to harm citizens who may be interested in improving health care for themselves and their families. It is not an effort to persuade anyone of the political merits of the plan. It merely informs people of what is currently available. But the anti-health right prefers that the nation be kept as ignorant as possible. That’s something that is apparent to any objective person who watches Fox News. But in this case, the result is not merely being ill-informed, it can lead to serious repercussions for the medical well-being of innocent citizens who are more interested in the health of their families than the phony political controversies that Fox is trying to create.

Fox is embarking on a shameful exercise in greed over humanity. And even Fox viewers should be concerned that their network is working so hard to make sure they stay stupid.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Math-Challenged Poll Analysis On ObamaCare

Posted by on May 30, 2013 at 7:49 am. 3 Comments :

In yet another attempt to turn their audience into blithering idiots, the Fox Nationalists have posted the results of a CNN poll on ObamaCare with a thoroughly misleading headline and commentary: “Poll: Majority of Americans Oppose ObamaCare.”

Fox Nation
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Rather than linking to the actual poll results on CNN’s web site, Fox Nation links to a little known blog, Red Alert Politics, an affiliate of Clarity Media. Ultra-rightist billionaire Philip Anschutz owns Clarity as well as the conservative Weekly Standard. The excerpt that Fox extracts from Red Alert says merely that “54 percent of Americans still do not support President Obama’s signature domestic policy, compared to the 43 percent of Americans who support it.”

Not surprisingly, that is not the whole story – or even an honest representation of the limited story. A cursory glance at CNN’s web site fills in the details that Fox has deliberately suppressed. Although CNN also distorts the lede, at least they include the data that puts the poll’s results into context:

“A majority of Americans still oppose the nation’s new health care measure, three years after it became law, according to a new survey.

“But a CNN/ORC International poll released Monday also indicates that more than a quarter of those who oppose the law, known by many as Obamacare, say they don’t support the measure because it doesn’t go far enough.”

In other words, many of those who are being counted as opponents are actually supporters of a more liberal national health care plan. In a rational world, these people would not be lumped in with the Tea-publicans who want to repeal ObamaCare. They would be regarded as supporters who advocate an even more comprehensive policy.

Since 43% of respondents said that they support ObamaCare, and another 16% said that they support a more liberal version of it, a more accurate presentation of the poll’s results would say that 59% of Americans were in favor of the legislation – including some who want it to go further – and only 35% were opposed. That’s a solid majority of supporters.

But it may be too much to expect that Fox could grasp the complexities of math after they spent the last couple of years rejecting it along with pretty much every other principle of science and academia.

National Papa John’s Depreciation Day – Or How To Buy Health Care For 14 Cents

Posted by on November 12, 2012 at 3:43 pm. 13 Comments :

Well, here’s a bad idea, if there ever was one. “National Papa John’s Appreciation Day.” This is brought to you by the folks who supported Chick-Fil-A’s bigotry with an assist from Fox News.

Let’s say there is a nationwide pizza franchise that earns $1.2 billion annually, and whose owner is worth about $350 million. And this cheesy enterprise decides that providing health care for the employees who are central to its success is just too expensive, despite the fact that it would produce healthier, more productive employees and release the federal government and all other insured Americans from the burden of picking up the tab. Never mind that the company gives away millions of pizzas in promotions with the NFL, or that the total additional cost of the health care is only about $0.14 per pizza, or that the owner’s projections are that the program will only cost about $5-8 million a year (less than 1/2 of 1% of earnings)

Then let’s say that this pizza vendor announces that, rather than reducing his profit margins fractionally, or finding other ways to cut costs (like the exorbitant executive salaries), he’s planning to layoff already struggling, low-income employees or reduce their hours so that they don’t qualify for health care – not to mention making it harder for them to buy groceries or pay rent.

Who in their right mind would promote a campaign to support this fiendish and greedy scheme? Fox News of course. Today they are featuring two stories that directly benefit a social media effort to “Stand With Papa John.” The plan is to get people who are in favor of exacerbating the hardships of workers and their families to patronize the pizza parlor on November 16. No doubt they’ll find a few tasteless schmucks who will participate. But screwing your employees to avoid offering them health care over just 14 cents is nobody’s idea of fatherly.

Papa John - Deadbeat Dad

John Schnatter has officially became America’s Deadbeat Dad. And Fox News is his enabler. Just like the Chick-Fil-A affair earlier this year, it is so disappointing to see people rallying around businesses that make hatred and greed the prime ingredient in their product. That doesn’t seem like the sort of thing decent people would turn into a cause celebre. And since that isn’t a particularly good idea, here’s a better one: Print out copies of the “coupon” above and take them to a Papa John’s on Appreciation Day. Leave a few around for other customers so they know exactly how immoral the owner of this pizzeria is.

Romney And Ryan Think Seniors Don’t Care About Their Children

Posted by on August 21, 2012 at 8:29 am. NO Comments :

Much of the discussion about Medicare has centered around the question of who will be affected by the proposed reforms. The Obama campaign correctly points out that Romney’s pledge to repeal ObamaCare would immediately subject seniors to higher costs for prescription drugs and preventive care. The President also notes that the $716 billion dollars his plan saves would come from administrative expenditures and the reduction in waste, fraud, and abuse. Not a single dime would be cut from seniors’ benefits.

Romney and RyanHowever, a major talking point from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan is that their plan to create a voucher program would not impact anyone who is 55 or older. The first question that raises is: Why not? If it’s so great, why are they preventing current Medicare recipients from enjoying it? Obviously, they recognize that their plan is objectionable and unpopular.

But the the more pressing problem is the notion that they can pacify today’s seniors by assuring them that they will not be harmed by the changes. They think that seniors will respond by saying…

“OK, thanks for not taking away the Medicare plan that is working so well for us. But go ahead and take it away from our children because who the hell cares about them. So long as we get ours those little snots can fend for themselves.”

If Rom-n-Ry think that seniors in Florida, or the rest of the nation, are going to be satisfied with assurances that their own benefits will be preserved but their kids will be hung out to dry, they are going to be in for a big surprise. Most seniors really do love their kids and grandkids and want the best for them. They will not willingly sacrifice the welfare of their children for promises that exempt themselves from the changes that reduce benefits and cost more.

The absurd suggestion that current recipients will not be effected is the very first item in a list of the “Key Elements of Mitt’s Plan.” Other elements are just as deceptive and/or harmful. For instance (taken directly from Mitt Romney’s web site):

#4: If seniors choose more expensive plans, they will have to pay the difference between the support amount and the premium price; if they choose less expensive plans, they can use any leftover support to pay other medical expenses like co-pays and deductibles.

This proposal reveals that the costs awaiting seniors will include unspecified co-pays and deductibles that will not be covered by the voucher, or “premium support.” The burden of that expense will fall on the recipient. It also makes clear the choices that seniors will face with regard to their health care. If their budgets are constrained they may have to settle for “less expensive plans” that fail to meet their needs. If it’s a choice between insurance or rent or groceries, it puts the recipient in an untenable situation. That is a big difference compared to what they get today from Medicare. It is also notable that any of the savings from choosing a an inferior plan cannot be spent on anything but authenticated medical expenses.

#5: “Traditional” fee-for-service Medicare will be offered by the government as an insurance plan, meaning that seniors can purchase that form of coverage if they prefer it; however, if it costs the government more to provide that service than it costs private plans to offer their versions, then the premiums charged by the government will have to be higher and seniors will have to pay the difference to enroll in the traditional Medicare option.

That is an admission that the “traditional” plan that today’s seniors are familiar with will cease to exist. The costs for the recipient may be substantially higher than they are now. And they will be competing with private insurance companies whose plans may be less expensive, but also less comprehensive. That also forces seniors into making decisions driven more by budget than by need.

#7: Competition among plans to provide high quality service while charging low premiums will hold costs down while also improving the quality of coverage enjoyed by seniors.

The assertion that competition among private insurance plans will hold down costs is refuted by the current market for heath care insurance. Does anyone reading this know of any insurance policy that has added benefits and cut premiums? Insurance companies are notoriously greedy in the way they administer their products, despite the fact that they are more profitable year after year. Most policies increase significantly over time while coverage is narrowed. That’s the free market that Rom-n-Ry want to force seniors into. And by encouraging seniors to exit Medicare, it will shrink the coverage pool, thus forcing costs higher while diluting the influence of Medicare to negotiate provider costs downward.

There are some services that ought not to be subject to the whims of the free market. Health care is one. Social Security is another. Just imagine the devastating hardship beneficiaries would have faced if their Social Security had been in the stock market in 2008. Yet that’s precisely what Rom-n-Ry support in their privatization plan. It is a plan that demonstrably harms seniors today and tomorrow. And seniors are not going to selfishly secure advantages for themselves at the expense of their kids. That would be a poor display of family values.

Obamacare Upheld: Will Bill O’Reilly Keep His Promise To Apologize For Being An Idiot?

Posted by on June 28, 2012 at 9:10 am. 4 Comments :

The Supreme Court today upheld the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) today and there will be abundant coverage of this historic decision for the remainder of the day, of the week, and of this election year. Partisans from across the political spectrum will be parsing the decision for ways to portray it as either a victory or an incentive to motivate their followers.

But there is something that occurred in the months preceding this decision that deserves renewed attention. On March 26, 2012, Bill O’Reilly debated the healthcare act with Caroline Fredrickson, President of the American Constitution Society. After a tumultuous exchange that mainly exhibited O’Reilly’s arrogantly thuggish personality (transcript below), O’Reilly concluded by saying this:

“Ms. Frederickson, you’re going to lose, and your argument is specious. We appreciate you coming on. But this is absolutely a mandate. It’s absolutely a force. It’s absolutely police powers from the federal government, and it’s going to be 5 to 4. And if I’m wrong I will come on, and I will play — I will play your clip. And I will apologize for being an idiot. But I think you’re desperately wrong.”

Bill O'Reilly on ObamacareWill O’Reilly keep that promise? Although there are incidents far too numerous to mention wherein O’Reilly proves that he’s an idiot, there are few times that he’s committed to admitting it himself. In addition to his debate with Fredrickson, O’Reilly also did a Talking Points Memo segment asserting with absolute certainty that the mandate would be ruled unconstitutional. He should not be allowed to forget his mistakes and his promises. Email him here to ask him to keep his word.

On a side note: After the long awaited decision was announced, Fox News cut away from their coverage to air an interview of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch by his sycophantic lackey, Neil Cavuto. There was nothing particularly newsworthy disclosed in the segment. It appeared to be simply a distraction from the Supreme Court’s far more consequential news. That will likely be the tactical approach that Fox takes for the remainder of the day. They will attempt to downplay an event that they previously trumpeted as the most important Supreme Court decision in decades. They will dodge and weave and misconstrue as they plaster the air with dissenting views from Republican politicians and pundits. The headline, for the time being, will be “Obama’s health care tax increase survives.” And as soon as the House vote on holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of congress occurs, that will become the headline.

Here is the transcript of the O’Reilly Factor interview with Caroline Frederickson. Note how precisely she predicted the Court’s decision that the act would be upheld under the taxing authority of the Congress. Note also O’Reilly’s brutish incivility as he threatens to cut off the interview if she didn’t comply with his demands to answer questions the way he wanted her to.

O’REILLY: Name one thing, one thing that the federal government forces you to buy. One.

FREDRICKSON: Well, let me first correct that —

O’REILLY: Ms. Frederickson.

FREDRICKSON: No, no. I want to correct you.

O’REILLY: Look, my — my opinion is my opinion. Your opinion is yours. I don’t want to be corrected. Ms. Frederickson please answer the simple question. We don’t have all night.

FREDRICKSON: The legislation — you have to let me answer.

O’REILLY: Are you going to answer this question or not? If you’re not going to answer, I’ll abort the segment right now.

FREDRICKSON: The legislation does not require people to buy health insurance.

O’REILLY: Of course it does.

FREDRICKSON: It imposes a penalty for those who don’t.

O’REILLY: You want to play the semantic game?

FREDRICKSON: Forces people to buy in the form of a tax.

O’REILLY: That’s a police power, OK? To impose any penalty is a police power.

FREDRICKSON: Tax power. And it’s designed completely within the rational scope of the legislation —

O’REILLY: No. Ms. Frederickson. This is not —

FREDRICKSON: — to encourage people to buy health insurance.

O’REILLY: This is becoming absurd. It’s police power if you punish someone for not doing anything. Sounds absurd.

FREDRICKSON: Now, you’ve got to let me talk if you’re going to invite me on your show.

O’REILLY: No, I don’t have to let you talk if you’re not answering the question. Because you’re dodging the question. I’ll go back.

FREDRICKSON: No. It’s actually —

O’REILLY: Name one thing the federal government compels you to buy. One thing.

FREDRICKSON: Well, let me say that under the Militia Act of 1792, people were compelled to buy muskets and powder.

O’REILLY: What act was that?

FREDRICKSON: This doesn’t require — The Militia Act. This doesn’t actually require people to buy health insurance. And I think it would be good if you read the legislation.

O’REILLY: I did read the legislation.

FREDRICKSON: It imposes a penalty. And a penalty is different from – –

O’REILLY: That’s compelling something to do something if you’re going to punish them for not doing it.

FREDRICKSON: No. It’s a tax. Essentially, people have to pay a very modest amount — it’s about $95 a year — if they choose not to buy health insurance.

But it’s part of a scheme in which Congress rationally chose to build a national market for health insurance and cover the uninsured.

O’REILLY: Ms. Frederickson, you’re going to lose, and your argument is specious. We appreciate you coming on. But this is absolutely a mandate. It’s absolutely a force. It’s absolutely police powers from the federal government, and it’s going to be 5 to 4.

And if I’m wrong I will come on, and I will play — I will play your clip. And I will apologize for being an idiot. But I think you’re desperately wrong.

FREDRICKSON: All right. Well, I look forward to it.

She was right, Billo. What say you?

{Update] This evening on the O’Reilly Factor, Laura Ingraham was in at the anchor desk because Bill O’Reilly was on vacation. Well, that would have been the perfect dodge for O’Reilly to avoid keeping his word and hoping that by Monday everybody would have forgotten.

However, Ingraham immediately announced that O’Reilly was on the phone from North Carolina to comment on this momentous news event. He spent ten minutes of his precious vacation time bashing the decision, the President and, on another subject, Attorney General Eric Holder. But he never mentioned that he is an idiot. Somehow, the fact that he is an idiot slipped his idiotic mind. I’m shocked!