With Repeal Off The Table, Media Suddenly 'Discover' That ObamaCare Is In Deep Trouble

Health Care: Now they tell us. After spending months pumping out stories about how great ObamaCare is, the news media are now admitting that, lo and behold, ObamaCare is unsustainable. What's changed?

On Saturday, The New York Times ran a big story that began this way: "Republicans have failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Now, can it be repaired?"

Repaired?

Up until last week, the Times had been reassuring its readers that ObamaCare was doing just fine. In an April story, for example, it said that "growing evidence suggests that the markets are far from collapse. Several recent analyses argue that this year's increase was a market correction, and that a smoother market would follow in the years ahead."

It added that "many insurers had been struggling to make money but now seem closer to breaking even."

Another Times article from a few months back quoted Gary Claxton, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, saying that "things are getting better."

In fact, we were told that the only reason the ObamaCare markets were struggling now was because Republican repeal threats were creating "uncertainty."

Now the Times is telling readers that "even people who rely on its coverage agree that it still has big problems."

Reuters, meanwhile, published a story the day after the Senate repeal votes failed, reporting that "hundreds of U.S. counties are at risk of losing access to private health coverage in 2018 as insurers consider pulling out of those markets in the coming months." This information has been widely available for months, but was apparently of no interest to Reuters before the repeal effort collapsed.

Reuters also quotes a Kaiser official warning about how the number of counties with no insurers could "easily grow significantly if a couple major insurers decide to exit."

If everything was "getting better," as Kaiser previously was saying, why would any insurers be thinking about exiting?

CNN Money waited until Saturday to quote Marilyn Tavenner, who was ObamaCare's creator in the Obama administration and now heads the insurance industry lobby, saying that "the status quo is not sustainable."

Wasn't that a Big Lie when Republicans were saying the same thing just a few days ago? Go figure.

Why are these ObamaCare-is-in-peril stories appearing now, and not while repeal was being considered, when such information might have informed the debate?

For one simple reason: Publishing stories suggesting that ObamaCare is unsustainable would have been seen by reporters and their editors as — gasp! — helping Republicans. That's a cardinal sin for any mainstream news outlet.

Now, with repeal apparently off the table, it's safe to talk about ObamaCare's warts, because Democrats are now eager to talk about "fixing" ObamaCare with, well, more ObamaCare.

It is a crass display of how today's agenda-driven news media does a huge disservice to the public.

 

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