Health Care Reform Lie Of The Year Is One Of Fox's Favorite Health Care Lies
PolitiFact recently named "a government takeover of health care" as its 2010 "Lie of the Year" -- a lie that Fox News hosts and contributors have repeatedly promoted.If a civil modern democracy in which people act out of knowledge and wisdom is only possible if all the people - Fox, right-wing pundits and politicians - adhere to certain standards of behavior, than conservatives Republicans are the opposite of patriotic.
PolitiFact: "Government Takeover Of Health Care" Is The "Lie Of The Year"
PolitiFact: "Government Takeover Of Health Care" Is The "Lie Of The Year." In its article declaring "a government takeover of health care" the Lie of the Year, PolitiFact wrote:
"Government takeover" conjures a European approach where the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. But the law Congress passed, parts of which have already gone into effect, relies largely on the free market:
· Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private insurance companies.
· Contrary to the claim, more people will get private health coverage. The law sets up "exchanges" where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don't have it.
· The government will not seize control of hospitals or nationalize doctors.
· The law does not include the public option, a government-run insurance plan that would have competed with private insurers.
· The law gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, so they can buy their coverage from private providers on the exchange. But here too, the approach relies on a free market with regulations, not socialized medicine.
PolitiFact reporters have studied the 906-page bill and interviewed independent health care experts. We have concluded it is inaccurate to call the plan a government takeover because it relies largely on the existing system of health coverage provided by employers.
It's true that the law does significantly increase government regulation of health insurers. But it is, at its heart, a system that relies on private companies and the free market.
Republicans who maintain the Democratic plan is a government takeover say that characterization is justified because the plan increases federal regulation and will require Americans to buy health insurance.
But while those provisions are real, the majority of Americans will continue to get coverage from private insurers. And it will bring new business for the insurance industry: People who don"t currently have coverage will get it, for the most part, from private insurance companies. [PolitiFact, 12/16/10]
Fox News' Sammon Directed Fox Reporters To Use "Government Option" Instead Of Public Option
Fox News Boss Ordered Reporters To Use Term "Government Option." As Media Matters reported, at the height of the health care reform debate last fall, Bill Sammon, Fox News' Washington managing editor, sent a memo directing his network's journalists not to use the phrase "public option." Instead, Sammon wrote, Fox's reporters should use "government option" and similar phrases -- wording that a top Republican pollster Frank Luntz had recommended in order to turn public opinion against Democrats' reform efforts. Two months prior to Sammon's 2009 memo, Luntz appeared on Sean Hannity's August 18 Fox News program. Luntz scolded Hannity for referring to the "public option" and encouraged Hannity to use "government option" instead. [Media Matters, 12/9/10]
Fox News Has Repeatedly Promoted The "Government Takeover" Lie
Cameron Uncritically Advances The "Government Takeover" Lie. On the August 12, 2009, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, correspondent Carl Cameron reported that protesters at a health care town hall forum held by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) were "angry that Grassley is participating in the negotiations with Democrats out of fear that he might give away the store and let what critics say is a liberal big government takeover of health care advance unabated." [Fox News' America's Newsroom, 8/12/09]
O'Reilly: "If The Government Takes Over Health Care ... More People Will Be Harmed." On the August 19, 2009, edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly stated during a discussion of health care reform: "If the government takes over health care ... and begins to tell people when they can live and when they can die and the country goes bankrupt in the process ... more people will be harmed, including poor people." [Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, 8/19/09]
Fox & Friends: Public Option Is A "Government Takeover"; "Should Technically Be" "Government-Run Health Care." On the October 27, 2009, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "wants to kick in ... a new name for the public option, which is really government-run health care. That's what the name should technically be." Co-host Steve Doocy added, "Government takeover." [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 10/27/09]
Carlson: "Shouldn't What We Really Call [The Public Option] Is A Government Takeover Of Health Care?" On October 28, 2009, Fox & Friends hosted Frank Luntz to criticize Pelosi's "rebranding" of the public option as the "consumer option." During the discussion, Carlson asked Luntz: "Now we have Nancy Pelosi not wanting to call it the public option. Shouldn't what we really call it is a government takeover of health care? Is that why she now wants to call it the consumer option, to kind of shield that?" [Fox & Friends, 10/28/09]
