For Years, Mainstream Media Ignored Republicans' Claims That Obamacare Would Force Policy Terminations and Took Obama's Promise At Face Value, Says MRC Politico

Huh?

Since the Affordable Healthcare Act was introduced in 2009, Republicans have dismissed President Barack Obama’s oft-repeated promise that anyone who liked their insurance plan would be able to keep it.

But was anyone paying attention?

For years, the media turned a blind eye to conservatives’ insistent warnings, often taking the president’s promise for granted. But this week, as health insurance cancellation letters started showing up in Americans’ mailboxes and the website roll-out flopped, the GOP message finally broke into the mainstream.

On Monday, NBC News reported that at least half of the approximately 14 million Americans with individual insurance are set to have their health plans shutdown by insurers under Obamacare. On Wednesday, the story was featured on the front page of some of the nation’s leading newspapers and was the main talking point for Republican lawmakers during the congressional hearing with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

For Republicans, it’s been a long time in coming.

...

For the last few years, the RNC, top conservative think tanks, and several influential right-leaning bloggers have been trying to convince Americans that Obama’s claim about being able to keep your plan was wrong. A few news outlets also cautioned against the president’s promise. As early as June 2009, the Associated Press wrote that “no president could guarantee such a pledge.”

But for the most part, the mainstream media failed to aggressively pursue the story, taking Obama’s claim at face value without testing it against the facts.

posted by Ace at 09:12 AM

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