For USA Today, Healthcare Glass Is 1/24th Full
The Congressional Budget Office released its analysis (5/24/17) of the GOP’s Obamacare repeal, and the takeaway was that a staggering 23 million Americans would lose their insurance under the law.
Well, this was the takeaway for most media outlets, anyway, as they announced the results onTwitter. The New York Times (5/24/17),Washington Post (5/24/17) andAssociated Press (5/24/17)—along with virtually every other news organization—cited this fact when they tweeted the breaking news. And no wonder: This figure nearly doubles the number currently uninsured in the United States.
USA Today, however, had a very different emphasis when it broke the news on the social media platform. The paper emphasized to its 3.3 million followers that the report was an improvement over the past CBO projection of an earlier different version of the law. “#BREAKING: CBO says House Obamacare repeal bill covers 1 million more people than prior draft.”
#BREAKING CBO says House Obamacare repeal bill covers 1 million more people than prior drafthttps://t.co/rjVUTCF9Kq
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY)May 24, 2017
Talk about looking for the silver lining: By disinsuring 23 million people rather than 24 million, the latest version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) is 1/24th less bad than its previous incarnation.
Based on theUSA Today tweet alone, one would get the impression that the CBO scoring was good news for Trumpcare, and not a devastating calculation that is among the reasons only 17 percent of the country supports the AHCA.
The paper’s tweet prompted a flood of comments virtually unanimous in their befuddlement over how one could find this marginal difference to be bigger news than 23 million Americans potentially losing their insurance. “What a misleading headline,” one reader summed it up. “You should be ashamed. This bill covers 23 million less than Obamacare.”
It appears the publication did notice the criticism. Almost an hour later, it replied to its own tweet with a more appropriate headline: “CBO: House Obamacare repeal will increase uninsured by 23 million.” But this response got much less play, with 64 rather than 108 retweets, and 62 vs. 128 likes, at last count. A little later, the paper posted anew tweet—not a reply—with a graphic that emphasized the 23 million figure. But this wasn’t able to capture the attention that the original, misleading tweet was able to garner as it sizzled through cyberspace at peak news time.
House#Obamacare repeal will increase uninsured by 23 millionhttps://t.co/LEDiDoNZNPpic.twitter.com/lQRATkZFyT
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY)May 24, 2017
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Michael Corcoran
Michael Corcoran is a journalist based in Boston. He has written for theBoston Globe,The Nation, theChristian Science Monitor,Extra!,NACLA Report on the Americas and other publications.
Comments
#BREAKING British authorities revise Manchester attack death toll to only 21
PPACA (“Obamacare”) itself covers twenty-eight million people less than single-payer would. Maybe of the people who are technically covered under PPACA have big deductibles and/or other impediments to actually using their coverage. It’s a good critique of the USA Today article, but maybe you should apply it to your own argument as well.
