Megyn Kelly was full of hammy outrage last night as she railed against the right’s latest excuse to take down ObamaCare. It's a 2013 video of one of the architects saying the bill had been written opaquely to count on “the stupidity of the American voter.” But Kelly has many falsehoods of her own to clean up before she points a finger at anyone else.
As Senator Angus King noted on Fox & Friends this morning, the fact that millions more Americans have health insurance should be the salient concern to Fox. But, as usual, it’s trying to tear down ObamaCare. And I didn’t hear a peep out of Kelly about how those who have gained health insurance because of the new law should get along without it. Apparently, that’s just too beside the point, just as it was for Kelly’s colleagues, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Brian Kilmeade.
Kelly was almost breathless with anti-ObamaCare excitement as she opened her show with this old news. Just like her Fox & Friends pals, Kelly failed to point out that her villain-du-jour was also the architect of RomneyCare.
You can watch Kelly’s 8:49 minutes of indignation below. But before you do, keep in mind that Kelly’s own record on ObamaCare honesty is worse than Gruber’s. Gruber may have helped write the law but he didn’t stop any lawmaker who voted on it or even a reporter like Kelly from investigating it - which is their job. Kelly on the other hand, is the one who is supposed to act as the eyes and ears of the public. Yet, she deliberately fed her viewers half-truths about ObamaCare and, as far as I know, never corrected the record:
- Kelly played a montage of clips of patients suggesting they had been conned by the Affordable Care Act. It was not until her Democratic guest came on that he pointed out that the patients were on Medicare. He said, “These people had changes to their Medicare Advantage which is administered by private insurers. This wasn’t the government taking away their doctor. This was people who - every year this happens. Medicare Advantage changes various insurers.”
- Kelly never fact-checked the false claims of a cancer patient who actually announced on the air that he planned to let himself die rather than burden his family with the medical bills he thought ObamaCare would cause. But it turned out Elliott was full of misinformation about ObamaCare. Kelly did not provide her guest with the potentially life-saving truth.
- Kelly promoted a businessman’s false claim that ObamaCare was the reason he was selling his business.
By the way, ObamaCare is not the first time Kelly has put forward falsehoods on the air in service of an anti-Obama agenda. She obsessively attacked Attorney General Eric Holder over bogus claims that he had not pursued a voter intimidation because of racial favoritism to African Americans. Obsessively pursued it, that is, until she was called out on the air about it. Not only did she suddenly drop it like a hot potato but she gave her viewers very little explanation when the accusations were debunked.
Even worse, Kelly’s source for the Holder attacks, J. Christian Adams, became one of her go-to guys for commentary on Ferguson and Holder’s role in it. She never had the honesty nor the integrity to either reveal Adams' discredited anti-Holder prejudice or to stand by her own prior reporting.
You can watch Kelly’s theatrics below. You can also watch Gruber walk back his comments and add context with Ronan Farrow on MSNBC today.
Obamacare will cut the cost of your health care.
Obamacare will not increase the deficit.
If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.
Obamacare will create jobs.
If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep it.
health insurance mandate was not a tax, but later told the Supreme Court that it was
Again, one side of the scale is so firmly planted on the ground on this subject.
Jonathan Gruber, I applaud you for your honesty.
2) Not sure what Kelly was referencing on voter intimidation but my guess is it related to the Black Panther Party. I actually think this was handled appropriately by the Justice Department but I would ask the question as to whether a white racist group behaving in the same fashion as the BPP would have received different treatment under Holder. 3) Not sure Kelly has any different opinion about Romneycare vs Obamacare but being the author of both doesn’t excuse deceiving the public. The rest of the attacks have no facts or reference points so I won’t comment.
Quote: The “both sides do it” argument is – by definition – a pretty lame one, especially when one side of the scale is firmly planted on the ground while the other side is dangling way up in the air.