Fox News: Healthcare Reform Could Be Repealed

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

With the new Congress just days away from being sworn in, Fox News has already began to distort reality by telling its viewers that, “President Obama’s healthcare law may be just weeks away from becoming a footnote in history.”


On Fox and Friends Gretchen Carlson said, “It is one of the biggest achievements of his presidency, but President Obama’s healthcare law may be just weeks away from becoming a footnote in history. What?” That does sound like big news, and I suppose if you were a Tea Party supporting Fox News viewer you might be ready hang the mission accomplished banner from your front porch, but once again, the news source that you defend as the only one that tells you the truth has lied to you.
According to The Hill, Eric Cantor’s office has announced that the vote to repeal healthcare reform will take place on January 12, “”Obamacare is a job killer for businesses small and large, and the top priority for House Republicans is going to be to cut spending and grow the economy and jobs,” Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said. “Further, ObamaCare failed to lower costs as the president promised that it would and does not allow people to keep the care they currently have if they like it. That is why the House will repeal it next week.” (What Cantor’s spokesman doesn’t tell you is that most of the cost cutting provisions of the law have not kicked in yet).
Whoopie, Obamacare is history. Break out the tea bags, Martha. However before you Fox Newsers celebrate, you might want to hear what the Democratically controlled U.S. Senate had to say. In a letter to incoming Speaker John Boehner, Democrats have vowed to block any repeal of healthcare reform, “If House Republicans move forward with a repeal of the health care law that threatens consumer benefits like the “donut hole” fix, we will block it in the Senate. This proposal deserves a chance to work. It is too important to be treated as collateral damage in a partisan mission to repeal health care.”
Well that pretty much takes care of that, so why is Fox News lying to their viewers about healthcare reform being repealed? My guess is that they have to do everything they can to distract their viewers from the reality that the new Republicans in Congress are going to be able to do nothing that they promised Republicans they would do on the 2010 campaign trail. Politically, they see the symbolic vote to repeal healthcare reform as an advantage. What they can’t seem to comprehend is that the American people are dissatisfied with the current reform, not because it goes too far, but because it doesn’t go far enough.
With the Republicans in Congress unable to accomplish anything that they promised to do, Fox News has no choice, but to lie to their viewers, and make up accomplishments like the repeal of “Obamacare.” FNC has already conditioned their viewers to not trust any other news source, so it is easy for them to spread false information to viewership that has been brainwashed into believing that only one news network is capable of telling the truth.
This is a new tactic for Fox News though. Now they are not just making up details, but creating an alternate political reality, where the Republican minority actually has the ability to repeal the legislation passed by the party that controls half of the legislative branch and the executive branch. The truth is that healthcare reform is not going anywhere.
No matter what Fox News may tell its viewers, if House Republicans want any legislation signed into law, they are going to have to go to Obama and ask for it. The Republican victory has only gotten them a better bargaining position. The fact that they have the power to legislatively accomplish nothing is a secret that Fox News will never tell their viewers.