Breaking News!: "For less just 2.5% of the budget per year, we can fix healthcare in this country and save billions of doillars!"
Did you miss that headline? Yeah, me too -- because no one is reporting it.
Putting aside the lack of merit of the Baucus bill, my growing frustration with the media's framing of healthcare reform -- from continuing to give ridiculously overblown and undeserved importance to the tea-bag astroturfers, to giving a forum for all of the GOP's lies, to pushing the "public option is dead" meme from the outset -- may have finally boiled over today as I read one headline and article after another, and heard one Republican after another blaring: $850 BILION! $900 BILLION! OMG! OMG! OMG! How can we AFFORD $850 BILLION???
$850 Billion? $900 Billion? Well, yeah -- over 10 years. That's $85 Billion a year -- not $850 Billion -- comprising a mere 2.5% of the current federal budget. And it's CHEAPER than doing nothing, to boot.
But of course, "$85 Billion a year" doesn't promote fear and anger the way $850 BILLION can. OMG! Big numbers are SCAAAAAAARY!
And "just 2.5%" of the budget" just can't ramp up the hysteria and bed-wetting like $850 BILLION can. Lordy! $850 Billion is almost a TRILLION DOLLARS! Lord, save us all from these CRAZY BIG numbers! The liberals will destroy us all!
And of course, the fact that spending just $85 Billion a year for ten years will actually SAVE us billions of dollars compared to the current costs of the existing system -- well, that's just too "complicated" and "fuzzy" to enter the conventional wisdom. Comparisons are so HARD! Even when it saves us money, change is SCAAAAAARY! Sweet Jebez, we can't be expected to do MATH! Give me sound bites! Give me mindless scare tactics!
It's just so much easier to understand "$850 Billion!" One doesn't need to use a single brain cell to think about "You Lie!" And ignoring the savings we will achieve through healthcare reform is so much easier than thinking about addition and subtraction.
So, instead of intelligent, thoughtful, and meaningful headlines, the headlines continue to bombard us with fear-mongering!:
$850 BILLION! A TRILLION DOLLARS! SOCIALISM! LIES! CONTROVERSY! DIVISION! DEATH PANELS! LIES! OMG! OMG! OMG!
But, hey, when it comes right down to it, healthcare reform is only about people lives -- I mean, it's not like it's important or anything . . .
A mere $85 Billion a year. Less than 2.5% of the budget. And it will SAVE us money. Let's see THOSE headlines.