ObamaCare

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Smearing The ObamaCare Navigators

Posted by on January 17, 2014 at 9:41 am. 1 Comments :

Fox News is heavily invested in derailing the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare). They have devoted hundreds of hours of airtime and editorial disinformation aimed at creating a climate of fear in order prevent Americans from learning about and exercising their rights under the new law. The rabid right is so desperate to crush access to affordable, effective health care that they have launched a “Fright Offensive” of unbelievable proportions. The latest example of this is an article on the Fox Nation website with the histrionic title “A Ton of ObamaCare Navigators Are Criminals.”

Fox Nation

For over 50 more documented examples of blatant lies by Fox News,
get the acclaimed ebook Fox Nation vs. Reality. Available at Amazon.

No kidding? So the ghastly prospect of engaging with ObamaCare will now force you to fraternize with criminals – a ton of them. And the evidence of this shocking state of affairs? Well, it’s a little thin to say the least.

The Fox Nationalists linked their posting to an article on the ultra-conservative National Review Online (NRO). The author is Jillian Kay Melchior, a Thomas L. Rhodes Fellow for the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. The Franklin Center is a Koch brothers-funded enterprise that disseminates right-wing propaganda to the media. In her slanderous article Melchior lays the groundwork for a wholly unsupported proposition that the people recruited to assist citizens with ObamaCare enrollments are a “fishy” and unsavory collection of outlaws. She says that…

“One in seven of New Mexico’s certified Obamacare navigators had a match in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database, according to public records obtained by National Review Online.”

Well, there you have it. ObamaCare is a thinly-veiled assembly of hustlers just waiting to exploit innocent health insurance consumers. This would be even scarier were it not for the paragraph just below that reveals that…

“A hit in the NCIC does not necessarily reflect a criminal conviction. The database can include, for example, arrest records and criminal cases that were dismissed or led to an acquittal, according to the FBI.”

That fact, however, doesn’t deter Melchior from continuing her fear mongering with an ominous warning that ObamaCare Navigators have access to personal information “including Social Security numbers, financial data, and health records.” Of course, this is also true about the employees at every insurance company. In fact, sensitive personal data is accessible to tens of thousands of workers in banks, retail stores, phone companies, etc. But NRO didn’t bother to look into their NCIC records. Neither did they look into the criminal past of members of congress like Rep. Darrell Issa (the most virulent inquisitor of the Obama administration over phony and manufactured scandals), who has a long criminal rap sheet himself. And if Melchior bothered to investigate the nefarious wrongdoers of Fox News she might have found this:

All this proves is that, in any large organization that employs human beings, there will be some percentage who do not meet the standards to which the organization aspires. Their only responsibility is to conduct reasonable inquiries into the suitability of each applicant and perform due diligence to protect those they serve. The ObamaCare programs do just that, as stated in the article by a representative of the New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance (OSI).

“The OSI receives navigator applications from New Mexico’s health exchange, running them through the NCIC system by name, date of birth, and Social Security number. Applicants who have committed a significant financial crime or were listed on the sex-offender registry are automatically disqualified.

“For other navigator applicants who trigger NCIC hits, three OSI experts then review the results, assessing on a case-by-case basis whether a navigator should receive certification. For example, a 20-year-old shoplifting conviction for an otherwise upstanding citizen might not be disqualifying, while a recent fraud charge could be.”

So the ObamaCare administrators are doing exactly what is necessary to insure the security and safety of private data. Nevertheless, without any evidence of criminal wrongdoing by even a single ObamaCare Navigator, in the past or while performing their current duties, Fox News has made a blanket, declarative statement that “A ton” of them are “criminals.” It’s a brazenly dishonest smear that unfairly impugns good people who have chosen to help others acquire access to life-saving medical care. And it simultaneously seeks to sow suspicion of people and programs that were created to improve the lives and health of every American.

This is typical of how Fox News works tirelessly to spread fear that is based solely on conjecture and innuendo. They invent scandals from sentence fragments and foment outrage from deliberately falsified reporting. It’s a practice that does a disservice to anyone foolish enough to watch the network, but it does an effective job of keeping them squarely in the camp of fools – frightened, anxiety-ridden fools.

OBAMASCARE: Healthcare.gov Passes Security Tests – Fox News Freaks Out

Posted by on January 16, 2014 at 2:23 pm. 1 Comments :

During a hearing today before the House Oversight Committee, Teresa Fryer, the chief information security officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the committee that the Healthcare.gov website had passed all security tests and that she would recommend its continued authority to operate.

Note that this is the same person who testified before the committee last year and expressed serious reservations which committee chairman, and recidivist criminal, Darrell Issa, trumpeted in his attempt to derail ObamaCare. Today, however, he dismissed her validation of the website’s safety and continued to assert, without evidence, that security risks are present. At no time since the website launched has there been any security breach, user information theft or fraud, or any other unauthorized access.

So what does Fox News do upon hearing this testimony? They make a full-court press to double down on imaginary security problems. It is a deliberate effort to spread fear among the American people in order to frighten them away from using the website and learning about the availability of affordable and effective health insurance. The form of Fox’s anti-ObamaCare offensive came in the broadcast of a segment on America’s NewsHQ that alleged that Healthcare.gov is still unsecured.

Fox News ObamaScare

Fox Anchor Bill Hemmer led the segment with a report that offered no support for the assertion that there were any security problems. The entire report consisted of unfounded allegations and speculation. That was followed by co-anchor Alisyn Camerota’s interview of Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz who offered more of the same. When directly queried as to whether there was any verifiable evidence of risk, Chaffetz spun off into pure conjecture and factless rhetoric. No Democrat or ObamaCare supporter was given any airtime.

Fox News - Mitnick

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Reinforcing this faulty foundation, the Fox News website sought out the opinion of criminal hacker Kevin Mitnick. Fox identified Mitnick as “one of the world’s foremost cybersecurity experts,” despite the fact that his hacking occurred twenty years ago in a technology environment worlds removed from today’s. Furthermore, there is no indication in Fox’s report that Mitnick conducted any security assessments of Healthcare.gov. His entire opinion is based on documents from others who also don’t show any results from having tested the site’s security.

Nevertheless, Fox reported that “Mitnick submitted a scathing criticism to a House panel Thursday of ObamaCare’s Healthcare.gov website, calling the protections built into the site ‘shameful’ and ‘minimal.’ That assessment, however, was not backed up by one of Issa’s own witnesses before the congressional committee. Waylon Krush, CEO of Lunarline, told the panel that “There have been no confirmed security breaches or hacks of the site yet, […] The flaws that have been found are mere speculation.”

Fox News is demonstrating their determination to overshadow the real news of the day: that actual testing by responsible authorities has proven the site to be secure. So Fox throws up segments on the air and on the net that have no substance, but that attempt to refute the verifiable facts. And they do so with disreputable characters who have no first-hand knowledge of the subject on which they are commenting.

This isn’t the first time that Fox has recruited sketchy figures to advance their dishonest agenda. Late last year, Fox’s Gretchen Carlson interviewed John McAfee, the notorious developer of the eponymous anti-virus software, who is presently a fugitive from a murder investigation. During the interview, Carlson raised the specter of outlaw hackers laying in wait on the ObamaCare web site. However, neither she nor McAfee actually provide any evidence of such a threat.

So GOP partisans and ex-cons are Fox’s “experts” on website security. And they are summoned forth to give their dubious opinions on the same day that the chief CMS security officer certifies that Healthcare.gov has passed all security testing, which Fox doesn’t report at all. Is it any wonder how Fox viewers have become so painfully ignorant? And that’s just the way Roger Ailes, and the Republican Party, like them.

Gun Permits vs. ObamaCare: Fox News Makes Absurd Comparison and Fails Math

Posted by on January 16, 2014 at 12:33 pm. 1 Comments :

In its unending campaign to malign the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), Fox News posted an article that adds to the evidence that they are so blinded by their extremist ideology that they can’t think straight.

Fox News

The article was sourced to Watchdog.net, an affiliate of the Koch-brothers financed Franklin Center. It makes an absurd comparison between the number of new applications for permits to carry concealed guns, and the number of new enrollments in ObamaCare. What they have to do with one another is never explained. They might as well have compared the ObamaCare enrollments to the number of new Illinois driver’s licenses or how many shoppers visited the Skokie CostCo.

To make matters worse, Fox slapped a headline on their article that said “In Illinois, gun permit applications outpace ObamaCare sign-ups.” But the first two sentences in the article contradict that assertion:

“In two weeks, nearly 22,000 Illinois residents have applied online for a permit to carry a gun, according to the State Police. About 61,000 have selected an insurance plan through the state’s Obamacare website, according to numbers from the state.”

So to the editors at Fox News, 22,000 applications for gun permits outpaces 61,000 ObamaCare enrollees. That’s a pretty far reach, even for Fox. Something else they don’t mention is that the 61,000 newly insured Illoisians in December represents a nine-fold increase over the previous month. There are no numbers for the previous month of gun permits because January was the first month that they became available.

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You’ve gotta give Fox credit for finding a way to promote gun fetishism while bashing ObamaCare. And while they may not have intended it, there may be a connection between the gun permit and ObamaCare numbers after all. With thousands more people in Illinois carrying firearms, there may soon be a need for greater access to medical care by the people they shoot. Isn’t that a fortunate coincidence?

Fox News On Mute: Federal Judge Rules Against Challenge To ObamaCare Subsidies

Posted by on January 15, 2014 at 1:57 pm. 2 Comments :

A couple of conservative activists sought to cripple the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) by filing a lawsuit that challenged the authority of the federal health care exchanges to offer subsidies to those who purchased insurance through them. It was a weak argument from the start, but one that had the potential to undermine ObamaCare because thirty-six states chose not to build their own exchanges. Consequently, the feds stepped in to provide residents of those mostly Republican-led states with access to health insurance and the subsidies to which they were entitled under the law.

Fox News

Today Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia shattered the dreams of right-wingers everywhere by ruling against the plaintiffs in the most severe terms. In his decision Judge Friedman wrote…

“Plaintiffs’ proposed construction in this case – that tax credits are available only for those purchasing insurance from state-run Exchanges – runs counter to this central purpose of the ACA: to provide affordable health care to virtually all Americans. Such an interpretation would violate the basic rule of statutory construction that a court must interpret a statute in light of its history and purpose.”

While Fox News is quick to jump on the most trivial legal setbacks for ObamaCare, they have yet to report on this ruling at all. Just last month Fox reported that the same judge declined a request by the Department of Justice to dismiss the case. But now that a ruling has been issued that upholds the law, Fox has gone silent.

Instead of responsibly updating their audience on a story they previously covered, Fox has once again made the old Benghazi hoax their top story. This is a familiar pattern for Fox: Go nuclear on any news that negatively impacts the President or liberals – Go mute when the story turns out to be unfavorable for the right.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Case Of ObamaCare’s Uncooked Books

Posted by on January 9, 2014 at 1:50 pm. NO Comments :

The burden of coming up with ever newer and more hair-raising scandals against the Obama administration must be wearing heavily on the Fox News flunkies assigned to that task. What else could explain the article posted to Fox Nation that alleged that Mark Udall, the Democratic senator from Colorado, had “Asked State to Cook Books on ObamaCare Numbers.”

Fox Nation

For more documented examples of Fox Nation’s dishonesty,
read the acclaimed ebook Fox Nation vs. Reality, available at Amazon.

The article alleged that “Udall’s office pressured the Colorado Division of Insurance to downplay the number of insurance cancellations caused by the rollout of ObamaCare.” However, the evidence of that claim was not provided. The Fox Nationalists linked their article to a column on the uber-rightist Breitbart News, where a concerted effort was made to spin the story in the most negative manner possible. At issue were the number of Colorado residents who had policies canceled by their insurance companies, and were not given an opportunity to renew them or switch to a similar policy.

Only by following a trail back several more steps to the original source in the Denver Post was the truth revealed.

“Many of the cancellation notices, however, also contain language allowing customers to renew their existing policies.

“One consumer advocacy group said that while the impact on the small number facing an absolute cancellation is real, ‘there’s been a lot of hype and not a lot of drilling down into the facts.'”

So, in fact, many of the alleged cancellations were not really cancellations at all because the customer was permitted to renew the policy. Sen. Udall simply wanted the number of cancellations reported to reflect that fact. But in pursuit of another phony controversy, the Fox Nationalists, in conjunction with the BreitBrats, manufactured a marauding senator putting pressure on a beleaguered bureaucrat.

As usual, there was no controversy, there were no cooked books, and the only departure from the truth was by the fabulists at Fox News.

Sarah Palin’s Alien Love Child Is A Distraction From ObamaCare By The White House

Posted by on January 7, 2014 at 11:08 am. 4 Comments :

The troubled rollout of the website for the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) has been a persistent irritation for the Obama administration. This despite the fact that many of the metrics used to measure the program’s success have been drifting into positive territory. For instance, millions of previously uninsured Americans now have coverage for the first time. About 2.2 million have enrolled via the state and federal exchanges, which is about two-thirds of the number that was set as a benchmark by the Congressional Budget Office. Millions more have qualified for Medicaid or have been added to their parent’s plans, both opportunities made available by the ACA.

While the media maintains a relentlessly negative tone when reporting on the issue, the American people still have a favorable view of ObamaCare. Consequently, Fox News and other conservative players are pressing a strategy that alleges that anything the White House says or does that is not about ObamaCare is a deliberate attempt to distract from the issue. Should the President have the audacity to perform the duties of his office, his critics accuse him of obfuscating for political purposes. This means that he cannot move forward on his previously stated agenda on the economy, on the minimum wage and unemployment, on immigration reform, on the environment, or on foreign affairs and diplomacy, without being accused of orchestrating a distraction from ObamaCare.

Fox News, as usual, is taking the lead on this tactic by reporting that Obama’s recent talk about income inequality is just such a distraction, even though he has been talking about that throughout his presidency. Fox raised the distraction allegation on the air with an interview of former Bush crony, and current GOP SuperPAC-Man, Karl Rove. They also made it the headline feature on their website, adding the angle of class warfare to the charge of distraction. For the record, class warfare has been raging for years in this country. It was started by the rich and any objective appraisal of the situation would have to conclude that the rich are still winning.

Fox News

The recent talk of income inequality being a ploy to shift focus from ObamaCare is hardly the first issue that has been exploited for that purpose. The media has made the same stale accusation for a variety of issues that are generally considered to be a part of any president’s responsibility. For instance:

It doesn’t seem to matter what this White House does. If it doesn’t involve ObamaCare then it is a distraction from it. Of course, if they were to focus exclusively on health care, their critics would then accuse them of neglecting all the other critical duties of the presidency. This is the sort of shallow and partisan politicking that is engaged in by people who don’t have substantive points to make. Because Republicans have no agenda for the nation other than repealing ObamaCare, subjugating women, minorities, and gays, expanding the proliferation of guns, and cutting taxes for the rich, they are forced to resort to these lowbrow methods of attacking the President for doing his job.

Be prepared for more of this in the coming election year. Already we have a GOP congressman predicting that Obama will start a war in an effort to deflect from ObamaCare. It’s only a matter of time until reports about Sarah Palin’s alien love child are making headlines at Fox News as just another attempt by Obama to distract Americans from the health care reform that they presently view favorably.

Sarah Palin

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Misquoting Michael Moore: ObamaCare Is An Awful Godsend

Posted by on January 2, 2014 at 12:01 pm. 7 Comments :

One of the favorite methods of distorting the truth that Fox News uses frequently, is to quote liberals out of context or to leave out significant portions of their statements in order to create the false impression that they have abandoned their liberal allies and/or their principles. And no one does this better than the folks at Fox Nation (see my ebook Fox Nation vs. Reality for more than 50 documented examples of Fox lies). In the latest episode, the Fox Nationalists glommed onto an op-ed by Michael Moore that was published in the New York Times. Moore’s title for the article is “The ObamaCare We Deserve.” Fox Nation went with “Michael Moore: ‘ObamaCare Is Awful’

Fox Nation

It’s true that Moore wrote that he regards the Affordable Care Act as an awful implementation of health insurance reform, and that he regards it as far inferior to a single-payer plan such as Medicare For All. He criticizes the rollout of the website and the pandering to insurance companies and drug manufacturers. He recalls that the core elements of ObamaCare were originally proposed by the right-wing Heritage Foundation and were the basis for RomneyCare in Massachusetts.

These are common criticisms that liberals have noted from the beginning of the health care debate. It is not a surprise to anyone following the discussion that a more universal plan was favored by progressives who essentially settled for what was possible to get through the congressional obstacles thrown in their path by Tea Party Republican opponents whose extreme positions were steeped in knee-jerk hatred for President Obama.

What Fox Nation left out of their article was that Moore also praised ObamaCare as “a Godsend,” that made it possible for millions of Americans to get coverage that was unavailable to them before. He heralds the fact that, for the first time, people have access to quality, affordable health care. He also blasts the red-state governors who have declined billions of federal dollars that would make Medicaid available to their residents. By refusing to expand their state Medicaid programs they leave more than 5 million people without any insurance at all.

The tactic employed here by Fox is one that they use routinely to mislead their audience about the public’s approval of ObamaCare. They often cite polls that show a majority of Americans have an unfavorable view of the program. However, they fail to note that many of those expressing that view are liberals who believe that the law did not go far enough toward providing a universal solution. A recent poll by CNN revealed that ObamaCare was opposed by about 60% of respondents. But 12% of them were unhappy liberals. So, CNN makes clear, “That means that 54% either support Obamacare, or say it’s not liberal enough.”

But don’t expect Fox News to report the truth that a majority of the nation support the new law, even after its troubled launch. Fox is far too consumed with distorting reality to be concerned with little things like facts. They are even so afraid that their audience might accidentally be exposed to some truth that, rather than linking to the Michael Moore article they were quoting at the New York Times, Fox linked to an abridged version of it at the uber-rightist Breitbart News. The BreitBrats referred to Moore’s column as a “blistering op-ed attacking the president from the far left,” and they failed to note Moore’s praise for the law as “a Godsend,” nor his blistering attack on the right-wing opponents of access to quality, affordable health care. Hiding the original source material and linking to cherry-picked excerpts is just another way that Fox keeps their deluded sheep in the corral.

New Year’s Resolutions From Fox News: Gamble With Your Life And Bankrupt Your Heirs

Posted by on December 31, 2013 at 8:58 am. 11 Comments :

From the day that health insurance reform was proposed by President Obama and the Democratic congress, Fox News has been fiercely opposed to any change in the system that had been failing so miserably for decades. Conservatives were united in support of policies that left millions of Americans uninsured while making millions of dollars for insurance companies (and the GOP politicians who backed them).

Since ObamaCare was implemented, Fox News has worked tirelessly attempting to persuade people to refuse to participate in the program. It’s a mission that seeks to cause ObamaCare to fail. Fox has feverishly rolled out blatant scare tactics aimed at keeping citizens from taking advantage of the improved access to medical care and the lower costs that the ACA provides. And as the year comes to a close, Fox News is augmenting their fear mongering with dreadfully bad advice that, if followed, will cause certain harm and suffering.

Fox Nation

The article, “Eight Ways to Opt Out of ObamaCare,” was published on the Fox News community website and lie factory, Fox Nation (see the acclaimed ebook Fox Nation vs. Reality for more than 50 documented examples of proven lies). It was a reposting of an item from the disreputable rightist hacks at Breitbart News who have been Fox’s partner in falsely smearing ObamaCare and all things liberal. Below are the actual tips offered by the FoxPods and BreitBrats to convince people that not having legitimate, dependable health insurance is a good idea.

1. Join a health care sharing ministry

These “clubs” are set up as charitable organizations wherein people are reimbursed for their health care costs by the other members of the collective. But in order to join, applicants must first pledge their Christian faith and promise not to drink, take drugs or have sex outside of a traditional marriage. Some even require a reference from a minister. Clearly, this is not an option for most people. Furthermore, those with preexisting conditions are not accepted for membership. The coverage also doesn’t include “products of un-Biblical lifestyles,” such as contraception or substance rehab, or some preventive medicine, including colonoscopies and annual mammograms. The clubs are are not obligated to reimburse anyone for anything and there is no regulatory oversight that protects the consumer.

2. Purchase a short-term health insurance policy

Short term health insurance policies provide coverage for a period of six months or less. They are intended for use between jobs or other temporary lapses in insurance coverage. They are not renewable, but you can purchase another after one expires. However, any condition that was being treated while one policy was in effect is exempted from coverage by subsequent policies. Short term health insurance policies are generally intended to only cover major medical expenses. In addition to excluding coverage for preexisting conditions, such policies generally exclude coverage for services like preventive treatment (e.g. routine physical exams and immunizations), pregnancy or childbirth.

3. Buy alternative insurance plans such as fixed-benefit, critical illness, or accident insurance

Fixed-benefit plans are described by Consumer Reports as “Stingy plans [that] may be worse than none at all.” These plans will reimburse you a fixed amount for a specified illness. It is usually far less than necessary to cover the services, and you’re responsible for the remainder. Illnesses not specified are not covered at all. Critical illness and accident insurance are similarly narrow and often do not cover common medical conditions. Included in this tip is a laughable suggestion to increase the accident coverage of your auto insurance policy as a alternative to real health insurance.

4. Visit cash-only doctors and retail health clinics

Cash-only doctors and retail health clinics provide only basic services that can be performed in the doctor’s office. Any more serious treatment like surgery, or services that require more sophisticated hospital equipment like MRI’s, must be paid for separately. Consequently, the most expensive types of care are not covered at all.

5. Sign up for a telemedicine service

Telemedicine is a great leap forward as a tool for providing a service in conjunction with conventional doctor’s care. However, it is wholly insufficient as a replacement for insurance. It basically gives a patient the opportunity to talk to doctor, but no actual treatment is covered. Costs for anything from a vaccination to open-heart surgery would be born by the patient alone.

6. Use generic prescription drugs whenever possible, and compare prices between pharmacies

This is prudent advice for any patient but, once again, it does not in any way replace health insurance. It doesn’t even provide the pharmaceutical benefits of a legitimate health care plan that can provide drugs for small co-pays of a few dollars.

7. For surgery find a facility that offers up-front “package” prices for self-pay patients

This is essentially a suggestion to shop around for cheap surgeons after you have already determined a need (and it does not address how that medical determination was arrived at or paid for). It does not guarantee that the costs will be affordable, even if they are less costly than the average doctor. And while comparison shopping for a Sony HDTV might save you a few bucks, is anyone really comfortable with having a heart bypass performed by the guy who offers to do it for the lowest price? Paging Dr. Nick.

8. When a hospital visit becomes necessary, work with a medical bill negotiation service

This advice can lower the cost of hospital services, but there is no promise that the fees will be reduced to an amount that is manageable for people with limited resources. For instance, your $50,000 cancer treatment might be reduced to $35,000, which is fine if you have $35,000 laying around. If not, you will wish you had insurance.

Every one of these tips are misleading and dangerous. They could result in people being unable to get necessary medical care and/or thrown into bankruptcy. For Fox News to offer them as suitable alternatives to health insurance is irresponsible and potentially tragic. The well-to-do pundits and editors at Fox won’t be the ones to suffer from this extremely bad advice, yet they knowingly put others at risk. And it’s especially offensive when the program that Fox is steering people away from is one that actually provides comprehensive care for more people, at lower cost, than anything that has been available in the past.

Health care is something that every citizen is going to require at one time or another, without exception. And while ObamaCare is not perfect, it is a step in the right direction. The more people who enroll, the more efficiently costs can be controlled and reduced. And of course, the fewer illnesses and injuries that go untreated. These are apparently goals that Fox News and the Republican/Tea Party right-wing oppose, hence this list of resolutions that can only make the new year a nightmare for those foolish enough to adopt them.

ObamaScare: Fox News And Darrell Issa Join To Tell More Lies About ObamaCare

Posted by on December 26, 2013 at 10:53 am. 5 Comments :

What do you get when you combine the cable TV “news” network most associated with blatant partisanship and dishonesty, with a member of Congress best known for a criminal past and a record of investigating phony scandals? You get the Fox News/Darrell Issa Sappy-Talk Disinformation Show.

Fox News

Earlier this week Issa made one of his frequent appearances on Fox News to bash President Obama and the Democratic Party. On this episode he was peddling an allegation that the ObamaCare website posed a security risk for Americans who visit it. It’s a claim that both Issa and Fox have attempted to hustle many times before. And like on those other occasions, they had no evidence to back up the charge. But that didn’t stop them from spreading their lies on the air. And while they were at it, they also spread them online at their community website and lie factory, Fox Nation, where they cited as their source an article in Roll Call that exposed the falsehoods in their own story.

Issa based his accusations on testimony that took place at a hearing he chaired in the House of Representatives. His modus operandi in these events is to selectively release just the parts of the hearing transcripts that make Democrats look bad. When the full transcripts eventually become available they prove that Issa was lying and deliberately misrepresenting what took place.

This event is no exception. Issa’s unscrupulous disclosures falsely implied that there were known security risks in the ObamaCare website that Health and Human Services officials ignored prior to going live in October. The snippet of testimony released by Issa included what appeared to be warnings by an HHS security analyst against approving the website’s launch. Had that been the whole story, Issa might have had a case. However, the parts of the record that Issa withheld revealed that the same security analyst reversed her assessment seven days later after steps were taken to address the problems she cited.

This is typical of Issa’s unethical promulgation of information that is deceitfully edited in order to advance a false narrative. And that is precisely how the Democratic ranking member of the committee described it when responding to Issa’s fraudulent tactics:

Rep Elijah Cummings: Chairman Issa’s reckless pattern of leaking partial and misleading information is now legendary for omitting key information that directly contradicts his political narrative. This effort to leak cherry-picked information is part of a deliberate campaign to scare the American people and deny them the quality affordable health insurance to which they are entitled under the law.

In addition to the mitigating testimony that Issa withheld, he also failed to report that his witnesses stated that “there have been no successful attempts of any of these types of attacks … no successful breaches [or] security incidents.” That’s after three months of operation in circumstances that have been notably less than optimal. So despite the problems that plagued the website’s rollout, while millions of Target customers were victimized by criminal hackers, there were no victims of any improper access by anyone using the ObamaCare website.

Notwithstanding the facts, Fox News and Darrell Issa bent over backwards to misinform their audience and spread fear about the program that is bringing access to health insurance to millions of Americans for the first time. Fox and Issa apparently prefer it when people are either prevented from getting the health care they require, or are bankrupted by the costs. And they are a perfect pair for propagandizing and fear mongering. In fact, just last week Issa held a hearing wherein he made a laughably ludicrous response to a health care official, saying that “You need to watch more Fox, I’m afraid.” Well, at least he’s right about being afraid. Fear is the primary ingredient of everything that Fox and the GOP combine to afflict upon the American people.

GOP Congressman To ObamaCare Administrator: You Need To Watch More Fox News

Posted by on December 17, 2013 at 2:06 pm. 8 Comments :
Fox Nation vs. Reality

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In the ongoing campaign by Republicans to sabotage the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), GOP representative Darrell Issa (R-Tea Party) held another in his series of carnival side shows he passes off for congressional hearings. On this occasion Issa took his show on the road to Texas, the state with the highest number of residents without health insurance.

During the sham hearing Issa browbeat Dr. Randy Farris, regional administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, asking him to answer for allegations raised by a video showing ObamaCare navigators allegedly giving out unlawful advice. The video was the work of serial liar and convicted scammer, James O’Keefe, and bore all the familiar trademarks of his dishonest reputation. It was heavily edited and it conspicuously left out any footage of navigators performing properly. The victims in the O’Keefe video were not even navigators. They were trainees, so it would not be surprising if they got some things wrong.

That didn’t stop Issa and his road company from tarring everyone associated with the navigator program nationwide with assertions of illegality. It’s an absurd extension of guilt that would be equivalent to declaring that all of WalMart’s two million employees were guilty of shortchanging customers after a biased video was shown of three or four of them doing it. If Issa encountered such a scenario would he call for shutting down every WalMart in the country, as he is doing with his call to shut down ObamaCare? Not likely.

There are thousands of people participating in the navigator program, and like any other large scale enterprise, some participants are not going to perform according to standards. Even Fox News is susceptible to this inescapable fact of human nature. After all, they have a notorious record of criminal activity from within their ranks. For instance:

With that list of miscreants employed by Fox News you would think that Issa would be holding hearings to get Fox taken off the air. Obviously they are nothing more than a criminal enterprise and they are using their wealth and influence to break the law, to enrich themselves, and to misinform the American people.

Instead, while questioning Dr. Farris about the navigator program, Issa was not satisfied with his answer as to whether a consumer’s personal information was at risk on the ObamaCare website. Farris said that private information was not stored there. To which Issa replied “You need to watch more Fox, I’m afraid.” Apparently Issa believes that private information is stored on the website, but he offered no proof of that, just his snarky dismissal of the Doctor’s testimony and his endorsement of the criminal enablers at Fox News. Then he went on Sean Hannity’s show to slather more lies about the navigators.

Let’s face it, the only thing Dr. Farris, or anyone else, would gain from watching Fox News is an embarrassing abundance of ignorance and an abiding faith in known liars.