CBS must have decided that their 2014 New Year’s resolution was to be a little nicer to President Obama. Acting more as a White House stenographer than an actual journalist, CBS News’s Jan Crawford went to bat for the Obama Administration on December 30th, doing her best to spin a positive light on the disastrous ObamaCare rollout.
In a piece that was better suited for MSNBC, fill-in anchor Maurice DuBois hyped the White House line that, “enrollment for healthcare insurance under ObamaCare are picking up.” In total, the CBS report was no more than a White House press release that could have come directly from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s mouth.
The segment began with Jan Crawford gushing over a young man named Derek Every who for years, “has been uninsured and forced to pay out of his own pocket for some very expensive medical procedures. But that changed December 13 when he signed up for ObamaCare.” Amid a backdrop of Every playing the guitar, Crawford plays a clip of the young man cheering on ObamaCare:
I can get a routine checkup now and it's affordable. I don't have to go to an urgent care in an emergency. If I get sick I can just go see a doctor and I don't have to worry about, you know, is this going to cost me $300 or more? Is this going to cost me a thousand dollars? Is this going to cost me whatever?
Crawford followed this up not by quoting opponents of ObamaCare but rather by showing a clip of Jennifer Palmieri, President Obama’s communication director to peddle even more liberal talking points, “December was great in terms of people wanting to be covered and also in terms of our web site being able to handle the traffic and being able to actually enroll people.”
Crawford concludes her puff piece by emphasizing all the work the Obama Administration is doing to promote ObamaCare:
But Palmieri says there's a lot of work to be done if the administration is going to hit its goal of seven million by the end of March-- including getting more of the young and healthy to enroll. Another White House concern: Making sure people who think they've enrolled actually have coverage.
If this is the kind of coverage ObamaCare is going to get from Jan Crawford and the rest of the folks at CBS, it’s going to be a great 2014 for President Obama.
See relevant transcript below.
CBS
CBS Evening News w/ Scott Pelley
December 30, 2013
6:38 p.m. Eastern
MAURICE DUBOIS: The latest numbers from the White House this week show enrollment for healthcare insurance under ObamaCare are picking up, but they are still well below what the administration had predicted. For those who have signed up, policies take effect the first of the year. More on this now, from Jan Crawford.
JAN CRAWFORD: For the past 18 months, 27-year-old singer Derek Every has been uninsured and forced to pay out of his own pocket for some very expensive medical procedures. But that changed December 13 when he signed up for ObamaCare.
DEREK EVERY: I can get a routine checkup now and it's affordable. I don't have to go to an urgent care in an emergency. If I get sick I can just go see a doctor and I don't have to worry about, you know, is this going to cost me $300 or more? Is this going to cost me a thousand dollars? Is this going to cost me whatever?
CRAWFORD: Evert is one of 975,000 people who signed up on Healthcare.gov in December, a surge of new enrollments that pushed the number to 1.1 million. Another 831,000 signed up using the state-run health care exchanges for an overall total of nearly two million since October. Jennifer Palmieri is the president's communications director.
JENNIFER PALMIERI: December was great in terms of people wanting to be covered and also in terms of our web site being able to handle the traffic and being able to actually enroll people.
CRAWFORD: But Palmieri says there's a lot of work to be done if the administration is going to hit its goal of seven million by the end of March-- including getting more of the young and healthy to enroll. Another White House concern: Making sure people who think they've enrolled actually have coverage. The administration is working with large pharmacies and hospitals to try to get in front of possible problems. In a statement, the CVS pharmacy chain announced it may provide a transitional supply of a prescription to a patient experiencing a temporary disruption in coverage. Now, late today, Walgreens pharmacy announced it would provide a similar service and, Maurice, this comes after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius spent the day reaching out to the CEO’s of the major pharmacy companies.
