Megyn Kelly announced at the beginning of her “Kelly File exclusive” last night that she wasn’t certain that the people she was presenting as Obamacare victims really had lost their insurance plans and their doctor because of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). But they claimed to be so that was good enough for her and the viewers. When a guest later exposed the charade, Kelly insisted it proved her point.
Kelly’s segment seemed to be based on a New York Post article which suggests, but does not really prove, that Obamacare is at fault. For example, the Post writes about Dr. Jonathan Leibowitz, also featured on The Kelly File, “UnitedHealthcare told Leibowitz that because of ‘significant changes and pressures in the health-care environment,’ he’d be getting the ax on Jan. 1.” Rather than investigate with the health insurance company, Kelly introduced her video with a little disclaimer:
“We don’t know all of the reasons yet. We know that these patients and their physicians believe it is due to Obamacare and they’re not happy.”
Kelly proceeded to play a montage of clips of patients suggesting they had been conned by the Affordable Care Act. It included comments like, “I thought I would be safe. I thought I would have insurance going forward. Now I see it’s a different ballgame.”
But then, when Democrat Matt Bennett, formerly of the Clinton Administration, came on, he added some truth Kelly apparently didn’t seem to feel the need to look for:
“This has nothing to do with the ACA. …This is Medicare,” Bennett explained. A little factoid Kelly left out, leaving viewers with the impression that the seniors featured in her video mashup were all insured under the Affordable Care Act. Maybe that's what was meant by the "Kelly File exclusive" claim.
And Kelly must have known they were really Medicare patients because she chimed in, “(Medicare) Advantage.”
Bennett continued, “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 shifted the story. She said, “Well, it changed things to Obamacare because they reduced the payments under Medicare Advantage."
“Well, yes, that’s right,” Bennett added. "But those kinds of payments to Medicare Advantage change all the time. It is just a coincidence that it’s happening at the same time as the rollout of the ACA. And people in the media are conflating these things but they are not related.”
So how did Kelly react? By underscoring her ignorance (or, perhaps, her duplicity). “It’s not just the people in the media. I mean, the doctor and the patients believe that this is directly related to the cuts that were made to Medicare Advantage.” God forbid she should do any fact checking before she aired her "exclusive."
Bennett later said that in the individual market, insurers are prohibited by law from raising premiums unless they cancel people. “So every single year, insurers cancel people and then they sign them up again because they need to raise those premiums.”
Kelly laughably insisted that that made her point. “It was foreseeable. It was foreseeable. They saw it coming as they were telling everybody they could keep the plan and keep the doctor. …They shouldn’t have said that.”
Bennett tried to rebut but oops, time was up.
This segment came less than two weeks after it was revealed that six supposed Obamacare victims showcased on the Hannity show could have been helped, not hurt, by the Affordable Care Act..
I’m starting to detect a pattern.
I’ve known several who have told me that they prefer to watch Fox because they’re fair & balanced. They really fall for the slogan that marketing public relations department came up with and to try to point out the obvious to them can be useless.
I’d always believed their old motto “We report, you decide” lacked some key point that would’ve been more accurate: Something like, “We report, you decide whether it’s accurate or not.”
I understand that the opposition will be against anything President Obama proposes, but to actually allow many to suffer just so a selective few in the medical insurance industries can profit is beyond comprehension to me. How many countries have the single payer plan with the citizens demanding that they have the same system as the United States? If they exist, they’re not very loud.
