Health Care

MSNBC host David Shuster on Tuesday demonstrated his condescension for conservative tea party activists, deriding protesters who had arrived in Washington as "far right" and "going nuts." Talking to reporter Richard Wolffe, he chided, "I mean, what does the White House make of the opposition on the far right?" [Audio available here.] Later in the day, Shuster showed video of demonstrators who…

Perfectly timed for the week President Barack Obama is pushing the House to vote on ObamaCare, on tonight’s (Tuesday) episode of CBS’s The Good Wife, set at a Chicago law firm, the lawyers “battle a health insurance company that refuses to pay for urgent in-utero surgery.” The CBS.com plug for the March 16 episode: “In an emergency courtroom set up in a hospital, Alicia and Will battle Patti…

"Is it safe?"That famous line from the movie "Marathon Man" comes to mind when considering the attitude of Ohio Congressman Zack Space about ObamaCare. Back in January, after Space caught heat for voting for the House version  of ObamaCare in November, he decided it was safe to "boldly" express his opposition to the Senate bill on the heels of Nancy Pelosi declaring it DOA at the time. Here is…

While ABC and CBS on Monday night focused on President Barack Obama's “final push” for his health care bill and the plight of Ohioan Natoma Canfield, Obama's poster woman for victims of rising health insurance premiums, NBC anchor Brian Williams touted how at “one last campaign-style rally,” in suburban Cleveland, “a shout-out from the audience gave him a chance to road test a new catch phrase: '…

Good Morning America's Jake Tapper on Monday interviewed a woman selected by the White House to represent victims of the health care industry. Tapper emphasized the sad case of Natoma Canfield, a cancer victim who "had to drop her Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance because her monthly premiums kept skyrocketing." Yet, the ABC correspondent provided no horror stories from those who deal with…

The Associated Press's timing couldn't have been better for those who still want to pretend that Social Security is really not in serious trouble. Stephen Ohlemacher's item ("Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs") originally appeared on Sunday, in the midst of most of the major college basketball conference tournament championships, then followed by the evening's announcement of the…

The White House may have to waterboard its congressional allies to compel enough Democrats to support the health care bill and Congress will definitely have to raise taxes if the bill passes, insisted Bob Schieffer, host of Face the Nation on CBS, this morning on The Early Show. [Audio available here.]As liberals focus on extending coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, Schieffer…

The end of Congress’s long debate over ObamaCare could be near, as the President pushes for a final vote this week before his Asia trip, and House Democrats want a resolution before next week’s Easter break.Yet whether or not liberals’ dreams are ultimately realized, they have had a huge advantage throughout the process. Over the past twelve months, journalists have continually stacked the deck…

When former New York Times editor Howell Raines decided to attack the Fox News Channel and blame the news outlet for President Barack Obama's shortcomings, there was bound to be a response. And delivering that response was "The O'Reilly Factor" host Bill O'Reilly, who called his show "the signature broadcast" of the network. O'Reilly dismissed Raines as a lunatic. However he was also critical of…

So much for the MSM refrain about Republicans having previously used reconciliation just as Dems are proposing to do now on ObamaCare . . . Larry O'Donnell has emphatically proclaimed that the way Dems intend to use reconciliation is "unprecedented" and has "never, never, never" been so used before. O'Donnell's many off-his-meds rants notwithstanding [recent example here], he actually does…

Let's see... The author of the bizarre solution to avoid a direct vote in the House of Representatives on the Senate ObamaCare bill is Congresswoman Louise Slaughter. Yet, to call it a "Slaughter Solution" is somehow an unfair Republican tactic. Such is the assertion of Brian Montopoli at the CBS Political Hotsheet:The Republican Party already has plenty of evocative phrases with which to hammer…

Good Morning America's Jake Tapper on Thursday forced a completely unrelated rant by Patrick Kennedy into a story entirely on health care. Tapper pivoted off a statement by Senator Mitch McConnell that legislation on the subject is a "farce." He then spun, "For one Democrat, the force driving that farce- the media- who earned the scorn of Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy for focusing away…

One of the left's knocks on conservatives has been claiming they're demagogues that play on emotion to push a certain point of view. It's been said about Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the Tea Party movement.  However, HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" host Bill Maher doesn't seem to take issue with using trumped up emotions to push an agenda. The difference - he is approaching things from the…

When Michael Moore starts getting panicked, you know times are getting tumultuous for the left and the Democratic Party.  The anti-corporation, sometimes conspiracy theorist documentary filmmaker aired his frustrations about the current health care reform predicament. Congressional Democrats have gotten themselves into a mess with time running out as the midterm election cycle fast approaches…