The bias of omission reared its ugly head again in broadcast news on Thursday after Republicans narrowly passed a new health care bill in the House, this time by failing to tell only half the story to the American viewers.
The biggest reason for repealing and replacing ObamaCare, many argue, is political. We’ve been hearing for seven years about getting rid of President Obama’s signature achievement while replacing it with something infinitely better, and House Republicans can finally say they backed up words with action.
{mosads}But the “why” always had a foundation: ObamaCare is failing. Premiums are going way up. Insurance companies are increasingly opting out. The current law is imploding under its own weight. That’s a fact.
In October, the Department of Health and Human Services reported that premiums would be increasing an average of 25 percent across the 39 states for a midlevel benchmark plan served by the federally run online market.
It also found that about 20 percent of those covered will have plans only from a single insurer to pick from, after major insurance providers such as UnitedHealth Group, Aetna and Humana scaled back their participation.
In Arizona alone, HHS found premiums would jump 116 percent.
In Virginia just this week, Aetna announced it was pulling out of all individual plans in the market.
In Iowa this week, Medica, the state’s last ObamaCare insurer, threatened to pull out from the state’s marketplace in 2018, leaving the Hawkeye State with no insurers on its exchanges.
As for deductibles, the non-partisan consumer insurance comparison site HealthPocket found that monthly payments for ObamaCare bronze plans nationwide will increase 21 percent this year. Silver plans will increase 15 percent.
Add it all up, and prices are going way up while insurers are opting out. That’s a huge part of this story.
But if you watched most of the news coverage on Thursday of the GOP passage in the House and the Rose Garden celebration that followed afterward, you heard almost nothing about skyrocketing premiums or insurers cutting and running on ObamaCare exchanges at an alarming (and telling) rate.
Instead, viewers on the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and ABC World News Tonight were left with the impression that ObamaCare was a popular law that was humming along covering important conditions such as the crucial pre-existing variety without any issues. And while ignoring all the negative aspects laid out above, portrayed Republicans and the president as rich, uncaring white guys looking to change a compassionate (but unsustainable) law in ObamaCare just for political sport and/or helping their fellow rich, white guy friends.
In watching all three of the broadcast news networks on Thursday night, all approached the story basically the same way:
ObamaCare covered X, Y, Z.
The new plan will not cover X, Y, Z.
Cut to protesters yelling “shame” at GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Cut to Rep. Nancy Pelosi mocking Republicans, saying they’ll “glow in the dark” from passing what she believes is a toxic bill.
Cut to Democratic lawmaker Rep. David Cicilline on the floor of the House screaming “tens of thousands will die” if the new bill becomes law.
In the end, the average viewer is left with no other impression:
ObamaCare was fine.
The new law will likely be horrible.
But in order to achieve that narrative, a few (major) pesky facts needed to be left out and shielded from the collective 27-30 million watching the ABC, CBS and NBC news shows alone.
The bias of omission is the worst kind of bias that exists in today’s political media.
And was blatant in reporting potentially one of the biggest stories of the year on Thursday.
A Gallup survey on media in 2016 showed 86 percent of Republicans don’t trust what’s reported. Among independents, that number is 70 percent. Democrats are more trustworthy, with just 49 percent not trusting the media.
I wonder why that is.
Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) is a media reporter for The Hill.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.