Health Care Cost Estimates Challenged, But Media Skip Criticism of ‘Non-Partisan’ Agency
Congressional Budget Office figures challenged only 16 percent of the time, despite former CBO director’s claims of ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’ accounting.
The Business & Media Institute found that out of 203 stories about health care legislation that mentioned the CBO after Obama took office, only 16 percent (33 stories) included any criticism of the CBO despite being dramatically wrong on health care (and other) estimates in the past. The true cost of Medicaid DSH payments in 1992 was $17 billion, 17 times greater than the $1 billion it was estimated to cost by the CBO in 1987, The Daily Caller found.
Instead of examining flaws or questioning the way CBO scores health care legislation in the past two years, the networks praised the “independent,” “non-partisan” “referee” of legislation.
CBS’s Nancy Cordes went a step further March 18, 2010, in an “Evening News” story about the latest cost estimates for health care reform. “[T]he number is $1.3 trillion, the amount by which the final health care bill would reduce the deficit over the next 20 years. That’s according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which is trusted by both parties as the authority on budget matters,” she said.
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