Health Care

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Wednesday's "Today" show hit Senator Jim DeMint over his statement that health care reform could be Barack Obama's Waterloo as the "Today" co-host accused, "People are saying that you are playing pure politics with this issue," and, as seen in the following exchange, pressed "Are you rallying conservatives to the cause of health care reform? Or are you rallying conservatives…

A night after CBS slammed as “incendiary” Senator Jim DeMint's observation that if Republicans are able to block Obama's health care push, “it will be his Waterloo, it will break him,” CBS anchor Katie Couric adopted the same assumption as she expressed worry to the President: “Are you concerned at all that if health care reform fails it will be a huge and devastating setback to your presidency…

On CNN Newsroom today, anchor Kyra Phillips interviewed Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele on the topic of President Obama's healthcare push.  Part of the interview:PHILLIPS: But whether government-run or private, I mean, no one's going to demand that you go one way or another. You're still going to have a choice. STEELE: We don't -- maybe we do. I don't know. We haven't had…

John Roberts, on the July 21 edition of American Morning, appeared to expect Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to turn in a weak performance on the issue of health care.  Hilarity ensued, as Jindal, who turned down Harvard Medical and Yale Law for a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford, proved to be anything but a pushover.The would-be newsman kicked off with some misleading statistics about Jindal’s…

After filing several press-release worthy stories on first lady Michelle Obama, New York Times reporter Rachel Swarns is clearly delighted in the first lady taking a more active role in the health debate in Sunday's "First Lady Steps Into Policy Spotlight on Health Care."She has become one of the Obama administration's most visible surrogates on health care, announcing the release of $851 million…

While President Obama’s health care plan seemed to be floundering, Tuesday’s CBS Early Show spun it as an opportunity for him to fight back, as co-host Julie Chen declared: "President Obama pushes back hard against critics of his health care plan as hopes fade it could be passed by August." Co-host Harry Smith kept up the theme of Obama fighting back in the later segment: "First, though, the…

PBS’s Jim Lehrer forwarded several questions with a clear leftward tilt during an interview with President Obama on his Newshour program on Monday. He urged the executive to “crack heads” to get his health care plan passed, and inquired if “taxing the wealthy” was an option to fund it. Lehrer later pressed Mr. Obama on the “huge profits” being made by “big Wall Street banks.”The PBS anchor led…

Former Clinton campaign operative George Stephanopoulos generally tries to put a happy face on big Democratic Party initiatives, but on Tuesday’s Good Morning America the ABC chief Washington correspondent was gloomy about the prospects for Barack Obama’s health care bill. He told co-host Diane Sawyer that “the votes are not there right now” for the White House to get a bill before the August 8…

In the grand scheme of things, Donny Deutsch's radical prescription for health care might not count for much.  Just a former-ad-man-turned-pundit spouting off.  But let's consider.  Deutsch is well-off and presumably harbors no electoral ambitions.  He is free to say whatever's on his mind.  And he is immersed in the liberal media-political culture.  Is Deutsch giving voice to the radicalism that…

Noel Sheppard mentioned this Associated Press story by Tom Raum yesterday at NewsBusters (Raum is tagged as the writer at this version of the report).Noel characterized Raum's report as suggesting that "the White House's delay in releasing an update about the budget might be tied to the administration's desire to get controversial bills on healthcare reform and cap and trade passed before…

For the second weekday in a row, Katie Couric teased the CBS Evening News on Monday night by delivering President Obama's aggressive retorts to critics of his health plan as reporter Chip Reid pitched in to help, discrediting critics by disparaging their perspectives as “harsh” and “incendiary” attacks -- all before Couric caught up with ABC and NBC from the night before and promoted Ted Kennedy'…

The Mayo Clinic on Monday issued a startling rebuke to the Obama administration coming down strongly against the healthcare reform proposal offered by House Democrats last week.In a statement posted at the Clinic's Health Policy Blog, one of the most respected medical institutions in the nation said: "[T]he proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable…

"The more these things are made public, the more the American people run like hell from them," Media Research Center President Brent Bozell told the hosts of "Fox & Friends", referring to an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that shows Democratic health care proposals will balloon in costs over their implementation. [audio available here]Indeed, as the Washington Post…