July 20, 2012
If one of the major party presidential candidates started to claim that the sun orbits the earth, reporters would suddenly treat the issue as a matter of debate. We would be told that candidate X claims that the sun goes around the earth, however candidate Y maintains that the earth actually circles the sun.
That is the conclusion that one would get from an ABC news piece that discussed Governor Romney’s proposal to replace the existing Medicare system with a voucher system. This would in fact raise the costs of providing Medicare equivalent policies. This is a conclusion that the Congressional Budget Office reached based on years of studying both the operation of private plans within Medicare, under the Medicare Plus Choice system and the Medicare Advantage system, and the operation of the huge private insurance market outside of Medicare.
In this context, President Obama’s assertion that Romney’s plan would leave seniors unable to afford traditional Medicare is not just an empty claim. It is a fact.
Responsible reporting would inform audiences of the evidence on this issue, and not leave it as a he said/she said. Reporters have the time to investigate the truth of the candidates competing claims. Their audiences do not.
[Thanks to Robert Salzberg for the lead.]
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