Touting how “over ten million people have now signed up for health insurance under the ObamaCare law,” NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt on Thursday night trumpeted “the ObamaCare law now directly effecting so many families who say it’s been quite literally a lifesaver.” Chris Jansing delivered heartwarming anecdotes about people who have benefitted and only, at the very end of her report, did she squeeze in a brief mention of how some have been hurt.
Health Care
By Curtis Houck | June 25, 2015 | 6:23 PM EDT
Despite getting a favorable ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on the ObamaCare case King v. Burwell, MSNBC’s Now host Alex Wagner couldn’t help but take issue with Justice Antonin Scalia as a Justice and the “bitterness and the vitriol” he employed in his dissent. She lamented that it “revealed a deeply emotional, partisan core that informs Scalia's decision making.”
By Tom Johnson | June 25, 2015 | 5:35 PM EDT
In the lead-up to the King v. Burwell decision, not a few liberals claimed that most Republicans secretly wanted the Supreme Court to uphold certain Obamacare subsidies because quashing them would have caused major political hassles for the GOP. The SCOTUS ruled Thursday morning, and before noon we had examples of the updated conventional wisdom: Republicans are happy with the decision, which will spare them harm in the 2016 elections.
One post in this vein came from Steve Benen, a producer for MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and the main writer for the TRMS blog. Benen asserted that chief justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, “did the GOP an enormous favor -- had the court created systemic chaos, and scrapped benefits for millions of red-state families, Republicans would have confronted an incredible mess they were woefully unprepared to clean up. Worse, there’s a big election coming up, and the GOP was poised to be on the hook for hurting a lot of people out of nothing but spite.”
By Matthew Balan | June 25, 2015 | 12:39 PM EDT
Thursday's CNN Newsroom hyped the Supreme Court's decision that again upheld ObamaCare as a "huge win for the President of the United States," as Wolf Blitzer put it. Gloria Borger and John King tied the Court decision to Congress passing the President's fast-track trade legislation earlier in the week. Borger trumpeted, "You have trade legislation being approved – huge win for the President. You have this reaffirmation of ObamaCare...huge for his legacy." King added, "This may well be the best week of his second term."
By Scott Whitlock | June 25, 2015 | 12:35 PM EDT
After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Barack Obama on Thursday, the journalists at NBC pounced to hail the "big victory" and assert just how relieved 2016 Republicans must be Peter Alexander touted, "So it is a big victory for the Obama administration. Basically, the Supreme Court has, for the second time, bailed out ObamaCare."
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 25, 2015 | 11:58 AM EDT
Following the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in favor of ObamaCare on Thursday, ABC News quickly touted the victory for the Obama administration with correspondent Terry Moran declaring “ObamaCare 2, conservatives 0 is the score right now.” The ABC reporter went on, in the 10 AM EDT hour special, to hype how "once again its Chief Justice John Roberts crushing the hopes of conservatives, upholding a key section of the ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 25, 2015 | 9:42 AM EDT
On Thursday, the “Big Three” (ABC, CBS, and NBC) network morning shows all touted President Obama confronting an LGBT activist who heckled him at a White House event on Wednesday but only ABC’s Good Morning America was the only network morning show to cover the highly anticipated Supreme Court cases regarding ObamaCare and gay marriage.
June 24, 2015 | 8:10 PM EDT
El reciente acuerdo entre la legislatura y el gobernador Jerry Brown (D) de California, para ofrecer acceso al sistema estatal de salud pública a los infantes que se encuentran ilegalmente en los Estados Unidos, fue celebrado ampliamente en los principales noticieros nacionales de Univisión, Telemundo y MundoFox.
By Tom Blumer | June 23, 2015 | 10:55 PM EDT
Two recent NewsBusters posts have demonstrated that the major broadcast networks other than Fox News have failed to cover new information reported Sunday evening at the Wall Street Journal. Newly available emails reveal that MIT's Jonathan Gruber "worked more closely than previously known with the White House and top federal officials to shape" the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
Monday afternoon, NB's Scott Whitlock noted that "All three network morning shows on Monday ignored" the clearly newsworthy revelations. Very early Tuesday morning, NB's Curtis Houck observed that "The top English and Spanish-language broadcast networks" did the same thing Monday evening. The Associated Press and the New York Times, the nation's de facto news gatekeepers during the Obama era (far more the former than the latter, in my view) were instrumental in this deliberate averted-eyes exercise. Neither outlet has printed a word about what the Journal found.
By Curtis Houck | June 23, 2015 | 12:23 AM EDT
The top English and Spanish-language broadcast networks again ignored on Monday night a new development in the Jonathan Gruber saga as new e-mails have surfaced that revealed how his role with the White House on ObamaCare was more detailed than previously thought. As initially reported by The Wall Street Journal, e-mails “show frequent consultations between Mr. Gruber and top Obama administration staffers and advisers in the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services on the Affordable Care Act.”
By P.J. Gladnick | June 22, 2015 | 2:32 PM EDT
Are you so gullible as to place your faith in the credibility of the current White House? If so, you might have to find yourself end up eating crow and apologizing to the skeptics for your gullibility as happened to Bloomberg Politics managing editor Mark Halperin on Morning Joe today. Halperin's apology came on the heels of a report yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that despite previous White House denials, it actually had quite extensive contacts with Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber.
Here are some of the details that made Halperin feel foolish for placing his blind faith in the White House:
By Javier Zurita | June 18, 2015 | 6:10 PM EDT
The California legislature’s approval of a bill that enables undocumented children to obtain health insurance from the state’s Health Benefit Exchange was cause for celebration during a recent Univision morning show segment. In addition to covering minors, unauthorized immigrants 19 years of age or older are also slated to become eligible for enrollment upon determination by the state that “sufficient funding is available.”