Health Care

Martin Bashir tossed softballs at Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards on his eponymous MSNBC program on Monday, letting his guest spout her talking points in defense of her abortion-providing organization. Bashir even went so far to use a phrase in vogue with the pro-abortion left in one of his questions: "Do you think this is, in effect, a war on women?" [Audio available here; video…

On Friday, Cass Sunstein, the White House's 56 year-old Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (pictured at right), attempted to disavow a 42-page paper he wrote called "Lives, Life-Years, and Willingness to Pay," which recommended that the government reduce resources directed at benefitting the elderly in favor of increasing what goes to young people, because young…

In late January (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted how the Associated Press and the New York Times had been studiously avoiding covering the Obamacare waivers granted by Kathleen Sebelius's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Though I can't verify that the AP has ignored the issue since, it doesn't seem to have been a prominently covered item until today, when wire service…

CBS's Erica Hill hounded newly-announced Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday's Early Show about his 2008 proposal to allow the Big Three auto companies to go into bankruptcy proceedings instead of bailing them out: "Based on what we've seen in the auto industry, weren't you wrong in this case?" By contrast, her co-anchor, Chris Wragge, went easier on DNC Chair Debbie…

At the New York Times yesterday (appearing on the front page in today's print edition), Keith Schneider's Jack Kevorkian obituary described the late assisted suicide practitioner as "fiercely principled." An advanced search on that term (in quotes) indicates that the Old Gray Lady has only used it to describe a real human being one other time since 1981, in reference to composer Peter Maxwell…

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, new chairwoman of the DNC, falsely claimed Sunday that the Ryan Medicare plan would deny care to seniors with preexisting medical conditions and that all future beneficiaries of Medicare would be abandoned by the Ryan plan and have to buy their own insurance from a private company. As reported by both FactCheck.org and Washington Post, both of her Democratic talking…

The conventional wisdom in the liberal media is that the special election in NY-26 was a referendum on the Ryan budget, which the voters rejected by electing the Democratic candidate. Despite the flaws in this talking point, which NewsBusters' Lachlan Markay explains here, Time magazine's Joe Klein took this argument to a whole new low. On the May 25 edition of MSNBC's "Last Word," Klein…

CNN anchor Randi Kaye finished her Tuesday news hour with a giddy monologue praising the newest smoking ban in New York City. The ban, signed into law by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in February, took effect Tuesday and outlawed smoking in city parks, public plazas, beaches, and boardwalks. "Yes, say what you want about Mayor Bloomberg's smoking ban on, oh, about 1700 parks and 14 miles of…

Joe Scarborough made a puzzling comment today that, to put it generously, could use some clarification. On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Scarborough argued that Rep. Paul Ryan's 2012 budget plan will fail because "fundamentally changing" Medicare is too extreme. But in a previous show, the morning host sang a remarkably different tune.

"Did someone or something fail Jared Loughner?" CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked recovering alcoholic and former congressman Patrick Kennedy Sunday. The question came after Kennedy described his alcoholic condition as a mental disease and not a moral failure, and attributed mental illness to Loughner, the Tuscon shooter who killed six and critically injured Rep.…

In their coverage of Herman Cain's official announcement that he is a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, Associated Press reporters Shannon McCaffrey and Greg Bluestein limited their description of Cain's tenure as chief executive of Godfather's Pizza to the following: He worked at Coca-Cola, Pillsbury and Burger King before taking the helm of the…

Reuters slanted towards the critics of McDonald's in a Thursday report about a petition calling on the fast food giant to retire mascot Ronald McDonald and to give up its signature Happy Meal for kids. Correspondent Debra Sherman even went so far to spotlight how the CEO of a medical company which produces "cholesterol-lowering statins and...heart stents" sits on the board of McDonald's.…

According to the three major networks, the granting of numerous waivers to Barack Obama's health care law, including 38 in April alone to wealthy, entertainment businesses in Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district, isn't of much interest. ABC and CBS have completely ignored waivers, while NBC only included a general mention from a Republican senator. As the Daily Caller's Matthew Boyle…

I think people are missing the main point of Obamacare's alleged "death panels": Obama has forfeited any claim to moral authority in pursuit of his so-called health care reform. It is indisputable that the thrust of Obama's push for Obamacare was that too many Americans were being denied access to medical care, and that health care "should be a right for every American." He obviously believes…