A Guy Who Repeatedly Says He's Not an Expert, Is Brought on as an Expert
Reported by Melanie - August 16, 2007 -
Alexis Glick substituted for Neil Cavuto again today (August 16, 2007) on Fox's "premiere business news" show. Midway through the program she hosted Kurt Loder of MTV News to bash John Edwards talk about universal health care and taxes. Loder seemed totally out of his element but he stuck it out and slogged through the discussion while video of John Edwards appeared on the split screen.
Glick introduced Loder by pointing out that Edwards is in Iowa "talking universal health care, a plan that would lead to a possible tax hike." Is this "bad timing" amid all this volatility?
Loder: "Well, I'm not a pundit on economics, or politics either," but I did a review of Michael Moore's movie Sicko and how it promotes "universal health care in other countries," and if you "look at these countries it has been a disaster. Health care can be rationed by the market or it can be rationed by the government. If it's rationed by the government, you're not going to have as many services. They'll ration services."
Glick asked Loder what the solution was. He said, "Well, probably a good idea would be to get government out of health care. Again, I'm not an expert on this but it seems like it would be a good idea, maybe do something about medical licensing. I mean, do you need a surgeon if you have a hang nail? Probably not. That might be a good idea."
Asked whether young people supported his position, Loder said young people's views are, of course, all over the spectrum but for the most part they don't think about health care very much.
Glick said John Edwards universal health care could "potentially" raise taxes "substantially," and "that's a problem, right?"
Loder: "Well, again, I'm not an expert but it seems like a bad idea generally to raise taxes for government schemes."
Comment: I appreciate that Loder made it clear that he's "not an expert," but why the hell did he agree to go on in the first place? All publicity is good, I guess. Then again, Fox isn't above presenting a film critic who reviewed Sicko as qualified to discuss the ramifications of implementing universal health care, er, "schemes." Oh, that's right. It isn't about discussing health care. It's about bashing John Edwards and you don't need to know much about health care to do that.
