The billionaires-funded propaganda that has engulfed the entire media landscape in the United States has gone into hyper-drive.
The deception is being carried out with ruthless efficiency across the entire country by corporatist propaganda outfits like the State Policy Network. According to SourceWatch, there is "a bevy of right-wing billionaires and foundations beyond the Koch brothers, [] including the Bradley Foundation, DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund (large donor-directed funds), the Olin Foundation, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation (the Amway fortune), the Coors-related Castle Rock Foundation and the Adolph Coors Foundation, the McCamish Foundation, the JM Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Roe Foundation.
These people are so highly organized, so goal-oriented, and so focused on moving their agenda forward, that they have been able to infect our entire society with false narratives, misinformation, and outright propaganda. And this effort clearly pays off. We are living with the consequences every day (and it's getting worst).
Case in point... Today, May 1st, I heard a "report" ("Second Thoughts On Medicaid From Oregon's Unique Experiment") about an Oregon's study about Medicaid on NPR by Julie Rovner. It was so transparently fallacious that I could not help it but take a few minutes to write about it, and expose it for what it is: A hatchet job at trying to discredit Medicaid, and Obamacare.
This stuff is so pervasive that at this point I don't know if these journalists are in on the con, are that stupid, are choosing to look the other way, or are being manipulated, used as corporate hacks. I don't know for sure. But the effect is the same.
Two years ago, a landmark study found that having Medicaid health insurance makes a positive difference in people's lives.
Backers of the program have pointed to that study time and again in their push to encourage states to expand the program as part of the federal health law.
Now the researchers have dug a little deeper into their data, and the new results, published in the latest New England Journal of Medicine, are not quite as uniformly positive.
Not quite as uniformly positive? Yes, the so-called "new study" found that people on medicaid are also afflicted by hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes...
This is a prime example of Koch-funded propaganda modus operandi. Muddle the waters, confuse the issues, challenge the data, and the science (and the findings), pay off "researchers" to do their bidding. After all, it has worked perfectly for them on the issue of global warming.
When the study subjects who were covered by medicaid were surveyed, they reported a high degree of satisfaction with medicaid:
Overall, the findings were uniformly positive. People with insurance used more care, spent less money. "We found big improvements in self-reported health," Baicker said. "We asked people how they felt, how their health interfered with their normal daily activities. And they reported substantial gains when they got Medicaid coverage, relative to the randomly assigned control group that didn't have Medicaid coverage."
But that wasn't enough! No, your opinion doesn't count. There must be something wrong...
Obamacare can't work.
For this current study, however, the researchers wanted to go a little deeper. Rather than just asking people if they felt better, they wanted to see if they actually were healthier after getting Medicaid coverage.
So they did personal visits that included medical tests, like blood pressure and cholesterol screening.
But the results there weren't so positive. There was no statistically significant difference between the Medicaid group and the control group in those measures.
The emphasis is mine
Yes, they wanted to go a little deeper. Into your pockets!
And wait for this... The "researcher" found that there were financial benefits for those who had medicaid coverage, but that it came at a cost to society and taxpayers!
WTF? Of course it has a cost! That what societies do. At least that's what decent societies do; that's what every other industrialized (modern, first world) country does, except the U.S., of course (when it comes to universal health care).
And for the kicker, they actually bring in the corporate shill incarnated, "Scott Gottlieb, a physician and resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institure. He said that people are not paying attention to a lot of the problems with Medicaid, as it's being expanded under Obamacare.
One of his "concerns" is that people who need specialty services may not be able to get access in a timely fashion under Medicaid. Okay, let me wrap my head around that one for a sec... If my choice is between being uninsured or having Medicaid coverage, I would be better off remaining uninsured, with all the life-crushing consequences that may bring, because if I ever need "specialty care" I may not be able to get it in a timely fashion.
The absurdity of it all is extreme. Read some of the comments on the NPR site.
I can't believe it's even a question whether medical coverage is good for people. They should do a study about the effects of people getting enough to eat next, but I'm sure the American Enterprise Institute would say that we shouldn't rush to make sure everybody is fed.
- Elias Bukley
What a hatchet job! And at NPR? Wow, what a shame.
Shame of you NPR! We are not that stupid.
(Reference: ALEC: Health, Pharmaceuticals, and Safety Net Programs; SPN: Aiding ALEC & Spinning Disinformation in the States.)
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Ray Pensador |
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