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Yesterday, I pointed out exactly how the Washington Post made a completely unprovable (and mostly likely false) statement in their paper. It now seems that Ben Nelson (D-NE) is using the Washington Post’s lies to make his case against a real public option. The Post falsely claimed:
If a public plan were run by the states and available only to those who lack affordable private options, support for it jumps to 76 percent. Under those circumstances, even a majority of Republicans, 56 percent, would be in favor of it, about double their level of support without such a limitation.
Their polling data does not support this claim at all. First, they falsely assume everyone who supports the public option would still support an extremely watered down public option. They did not ask the question of everyone in the poll to see if 76 percent supported this watered down public option.
Second, the poll also added the “If the public plan were run by the states” clause to a poorly designed multi-part question. The exact same ABC News-Washington Post poll from a few months ago showed that restricting the public option “only to those who lack affordable private options” (without the “run by the state” clause) cause the support to jump to an identical 76 percent. One can only assume (because the Washington Post failed to properly poll) having the public option run by states had little to zero effect on support for the idea of a public option. It is almost as if the Washington Post were purposely trying to trick people into thinking that state-run public plans were more popular than a national plan.
TPM is reporting that Ben Nelson is now using this lie from the Washington Post to fight against a real national public option.
“Well, there are different kinds of public options…. What was interesting in the poll numbers that I saw, that while there’s support for public option generally, generically, when you start talking about it specifically as it relates to states being able to opt out or opt in, have their own, the support overwhelmingly goes up to 76 percent.”
The actual polling data simply does not support the claim that allowing states to run the public plans or opt out dramatically increase the support for the idea. I can’t blame Nelson for believing what he read in the Washington Post. On the other hand, the Washington Post should be doubly ashamed of itself for misleading its readers. Now its lies are also being used to justify bad policy decisions.
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Now its lies are also being used to justify bad policy decisions.
Reminds me when Judy Miller shilled for the Pentagon to justify attacking Iraq, and Cheney was like all, “Well, even the liberal NY Times…blah blah blah blah.”
Lying with numbers still this whole debate has been filled with bad lies. Insurance companies want their cash thats all this is the *cough* reasons/polls etc change they are all funny the desire however always remains the same.
Has Ben Nelson read the position that the Nebraska democratic party has taken in support of the public option?
Insurance companies are paying off the struggling newspaper(s). Capitalism at its worst.
Thanks for pointing this out.
I also had problems with question 11 about the individual requirement, because people don’t understand mandate means you pay or you get fined.
But the bottom line is the public at large hasn’t been educated about HCR so why we’re asking them what they think and then hanging on their answers is a bit ridiculous.
The polls don’t matter if you don’t care about the public, and the right wing is constantly proving that they don’t.
RE:nary a care;
‘Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele on Tuesday brushed off a new poll that indicates just 20 percent of the American public are willing to call themselves Republicans.’ http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/21/steele-not-really-concerned-about-declining-gop-support/
Ah, but I can. I can definitely and definitively blame Nelson. He’s a US Senator, for goodness sakes! He’s supposed to be smarter than believing everything he reads in the papers.
The WaPo isn’t worth lining a cat box.
David Dayen has a fresh cross-post up for us to devour: “Pelosi About To Include Medicare +5 Public Option In House Bill”
And according to Howard Feinman on Countdown last night, this democrat is willing to filibuster the public option. But then, Feinman mouthed a lot of crappy Beltway conventional wisdom last night. The man’s an ass…
FWDiva
He’s a liar anyway. Even if he understood WaPo had made an error, he would quote them anyway.
The Post is intellectually bankrupt. The financial kind of bankruptcy may soon follow.