Our Failed Fourth Estate is to Blame for Obamacare Disconnect

Our Failed Fourth Estate is to Blame for Obamacare Disconnect
By Nicole Belle
June 29, 2012

It's the damndest thing. For all the rending of garments and calls for immigration to Canada because the Supreme Court had the temerity to uphold the Affordable Care Act (or maybe they were just afraid of harm to their children by those librul terrrists) the various aspects of this start towards universal health care remain stubbornly popular.



Look at those blue bars. Those are favorability rates that members in Congress would love to personally have. Even the lower rated individual mandate dwarfs their favorables.

But I'm more interested in those red bars. Those red bars indicate whether the respondents knew the aspect they liked was part of ACA. Look at that discrepancy. Consistently, people love what the Affordable Care Act offers them, but don't realize that they get it through the ACA. In fact, when asked how they feel about 'Obamacare', people aren't as happy.

So why the disconnect? In a nutshell, it's because the Fourth Estate has completely failed us.

Think about it. Why is it that no one understands how business and individuals will be impacted, as JJ Ramberg explains what a small percentage of small businesses are affected by the ACA in a rare moment of constructive information on Tamron Hall's NewsNation on MSNBC? Because it never gets reported.

Journalism isn't simply saying, "The Republicans say that Obamacare will do xxx..." That's regurgitation. A true journalist would provide the correct information to enable his or her viewer to evaluate the truthfulness of the claim. But all those high-paid Villagers in New York and DC can't be bothered, leaving it to us bloggers to hope our small voices reaches past the noise machine:

Rep. Eric Cantor said, “The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold ObamaCare is a crushing blow to patients throughout the country. ObamaCare has failed to keep the President’s basic promise of allowing those who like their health care to keep it, while increasing costs and reducing access to quality care for patients. In this tough economy, jobs and economic growth are on the minds of most Americans, but ObamaCare has increased uncertainty for small businessmen and women and forced them to put their hiring decisions on hold.”

We have written repeatedly here at Politicus that the economic data proves that Obamacare creates jobs. It doesn’t kill them. Eric Cantor also tapped in to one of the big right wing lies about the ACA. Cantor’s claim that Obamacare takes away healthcare and replaces it with government healthcare was foolish. The truth is that the ACA takes healthcare decisions out of the hands of insurance companies and returns them to doctors and patients.

See? Is that so hard? No. And moreover, it's a necessity.

Americans need and deserve a functional Fourth Estate, but like the our political parties, they've become hopelessly corrupted and useless. Need proof? Contrast how PoliticusUSA covered the Republican response to how poorly venerated Villager Gloria Borger does her job.

Pathetic.

Obamacare may be in its embryonic stages, but it's quite clear our media is in its death throes.