Media Falsehoods Surround Clinton Healthcare Proposal

By Karl Frisch, AlterNet. Posted September 20, 2007.

In light of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's announced plan for universal health-care coverage, Media Matters for America thought it might be helpful to provide you with more information concerning several themes that have emerged in coverage of the plan since the senator's announcement this week. Major emerging themes include:

• Despite polling to the contrary, some in the media have claimed that Clinton's plan represents a "general election" problem.


• Media have repeatedly aired Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's criticism of Clinton's plan but failed to note that, as Massachusetts governor, Romney signed into law a health care bill with similar provisions.


• The assertion that the "debacle in 1993" undermines Clinton's credibility on health care, ignoring polling that indicates Americans believe Clinton's past experience with health care would help her in reforming the system if elected.


• False claims about what Clinton has said about her plan, including that it will require proof of insurance for people to work, that it would be funded through the repeal of all of Bush's tax cuts, and that it will require small businesses to pay for health care for their employees.


• Media reviving the myth that Clinton is a top recipient of money from the "health care industry."

More detailed descriptions of Media Matters' top items on these themes and links to full text are included below:

Sen. Clinton's Plan a "General Election" Problem

While reporting on Sen. Hillary Clinton's recently unveiled universal health-care proposal during the September 18 edition of NBC's Today, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell said that "the real problem for Clinton" may be "selling the plan in the general election campaign." As evidence, Mitchell pointed to attacks on Clinton by Republican presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney over her health-care proposal. But, Mitchell did not note that, in fact, public opinion polling shows that the majority of Americans support a national health insurance program.

Romney on Clinton's Health-Care Plan

In articles on Sen. Hillary Clinton's health care proposal, several media outlets reported Mitt Romney's attack on the plan without mentioning that, as governor of Massachusetts, he signed into law a health care bill that requires every state resident to obtain health insurance -- one of the central tenets of Clinton's plan.

An ABCNews.com article quoted Mitt Romney attacking Sen. Hillary Clinton's health care policy, but did not note that Romney was attacking a plan that he had not yet seen, nor that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney endorsed a law requiring residents to purchase health insurance.

During a report on Sen. Hillary Clinton's health care proposal, CNN's Betty Nguyen aired Mitt Romney's attack on the plan, but claimed that, "like Clinton, he'd mandate health insurance." But in announcing his national health reform plan in August, Romney declined to support mandates in what was reportedly a "significant[]" departure "from the universal health care measure that he helped forge as governor of Massachusetts."

Proof of Health Care Required for Work

On September 18, the Drudge Report, the website of Internet gossip Matt Drudge, featured the lead headline "HEALTH INSURANCE PROOF REQUIRED FOR WORK" under a picture of Sen. Hillary Clinton. However, the Associated Press article to which the headline linked did not report that Clinton's recently proposed health care plan would require people to show proof of health insurance "for work." Rather, it reported that, in an interview with the AP, Clinton said: "At this point, we don't have anything punitive that we have proposed" for people who do not purchase health insurance as required by her plan. According to the article, Clinton also said, "We're providing incentives and tax credits which we think will be very attractive to the vast majority of Americans." The AP article also stated that Clinton "said she could envision a day when 'you have to show proof to your employer that you're insured as a part of the job interview -- like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination,' but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress."

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