Even liberal English language media have occasionally given in to some accurate reporting about the ongoing Obamacare disaster that continues to plague American families of all stripes and their health care.
Unfortunately, that has largely not been the case at Spanish language media giant Univision.
A recent television report at the network provides an example of the tremendous bias on this score shown by the network. In the introduction to the piece, anchor Jorge Ramos acknowledges that Obamacare is “one of the most controversial laws in the recent history of this country.”
But the reality-check stops there, as correspondent Jaime Garcia goes on to promote an untarnished view of the law, even going so far as to claim that there has been increased competition among insurers that has caused some prices to drop.
In his report, Garcia gives free reign to various interview subjects, all of whom uniformly promote the law. A spokeswoman for Covered California, the state’s Obamacare insurance marketplace, describes 2014 as a year of “great success” (although she does reference “lessons” that have been supposedly learned). And a representative for Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center correlates the uptick in medical visits to increased enrollment.
Citing the “great benefits” of Obamacare, Garcia paints as villains Republican Governors who have not expanded Medicaid. Not only does Garcia not give any of them a chance to explain their reasons for not expanding Medicaid, but the myriad of policy analysts and experts familiar with why expansion is bad policy, or even a mere quote from such experts, are nowhere to be found.
To be sure, Medicaid patients, the poor and most vulnerable, often cannot find private doctors that will treat them due to the decreasing number of doctors who accept Medicaid’s paltry payments. Patients must then wait, sometimes for hours on end, in emergency rooms.
And state budgets, many of which are already stretched thin, would be hit hard as well. One report out of Congress estimated that the Medicaid expansion would cost states $118 billion or more over the next ten years.
As mentioned above, even liberal English-language media cheerleaders for Obamacare have been forced to occasionally concede the many problems caused by President Obama’s so-called “signature achievement”. A recent New York Times story is headlined “Cost of Coverage Under Affordable Care Act to Increase in 2015.”
But the New York Times, and many others, are indeed mere cheerleaders. As far as we know they are not being given large amounts of taxpayer money to openly promote Obamacare, as Univision has.
In the end, maybe that is the root of the problem.
