Has the Media Unfairly Covered Obamacare? The First ‘Great Mediaite Debate’

We at Mediaite have a proud tradition of presenting a variety of views on any given issue. As a non-partisan political/media website, we have writers from all walks of life: liberal, conservative, libertarian, all with nuance in between. As part of that robust “marketplace of ideas,” I’d like to introduce a new Mediaite feature: Regular debates about media/politics between several of our writers.

The initial question is posed below. From there, the discussion could go wherever our writers take it. McMurry will begin.
– Andrew Kirell, Senior Editor

Question: Have the media focused too much on Obamacare’s website failings?

Evan McMurry:

No. The website cost oodles of taxpayer money (though significantly less than many conservative outlets have claimed), and the public has a right to demand that it work, and if it doesn’t work, why not.

A major problem is that without a functioning website, there’s little else to write about. The Affordable Care Act will effect drastic changes on our health care system—I believe most of them for the better, and for the sections of our population that need care the most. But until the exchanges work for the vast majority (emphasis on vast), the media will have difficulty parsing the effects of the law. In the meantime, we seemed to have settled into a frustrating volley of breaking “Obamacare horror stories” of cancelled plans and rising premiums, which then are debunked. It’s like listening to sportscasters improvise during a rain delay, and no more enjoyable.

That having been said, there are other stories here, of which a fascinating one is the varied success of the state-run health exchanges. Kentucky’s is ideal; Oregon’s is ludicrous; most fall somewhere in between. As some conservative commentators have pointed out, this is a textbook exercise in federalism: different states design different programs best-suited to its needs, and they compete. What is Kentucky doing that works so well, and could it be replicated in others states? Is Kentucky already seeing benefits from its state-run exchange that might be the envy of the states that chose instead to leave their citizens to the federal exchange that they now (somewhat cynically) protest is dysfunctional? How great would it be if this feared centralization of health care ended up being a billboard for state-based approach to government?

Noah Rothman:

I hate to open Mediaite’s debate feature by agreeing with my sparring partner, but I must. No, the media has not devoted excessive focus to the disastrous roll-out of the Obamacare website. Indeed, the press should be commended for not singularly focusing on the website’s issues over the Affordable Care Act’s broader, more systemic problems.

My colleague does suggest, however, that the press is wrong to also focus on the millions – with an “M” – of “Obamacare horror stories.” There is no universe where millions of Americans losing their health insurance is not a crisis.

To claim, however, that the press should be focusing on the state health exchange site successes is to quibble with the notion that there are health exchange site success. Yes, Kentucky’s exchange portal is functioning, but the suggestion that the Bluegrass state’s 25,654 Medicaid enrollees and 5,891 private insurance enrollments (as of Nov. 1) is a success is lowering the bar dramatically. (Some of these new state welfare recipients were previously paying for policies on their own).

Furthermore, the disparity between state exchanges and the federal exchange is a direct result of the White House’s politicization of the ACA’s implementation. As Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle reported, the White House refused to release concept designs of the federal exchange site in an effort to insulate them from criticism. Out of a fear of being attacked by Republicans, a la Sen. Bob Dole’s 90s-era anti-HillaryCare tactic, officials were directed to obliquely “praise early work on those state exchanges that matched the hidden federal thinking.” That’s no way to run a railroad, let along 1/6th of the American economy.

Evan McMurry:

Ah, the “broader, systemic problems” with the law. Critics have been praying for them for a while—really, ever since “death panels.” In the void of full implementation over the past three years, the sky has fallen again and again, as we’ve heard the bill will slaughter jobs (nope), create a part-time economy (nope), engorge the deficit (nope), and more. This wolf-crying has relied on broad caricatures or sideswipes of the ACA, the type of summary analysis that perfectly inflates a four minute news segment but wheezes under the slightest probing.

Ditto, so far, the insurance cancellations. While nobody’s suggesting that millions losing their health insurance is not a big deal, it says a lot that news agencies, who have scoured ‘neath every rock for exactly the type of personal interest stories that would embody the worst fears of ACA critics, have instead found a lot examples of the law working roughly as intended, offering better and more comprehensive coverage for less money. Let’s not forget Dianne Barrette, who went from being the visage of the dropped-insurance crisis to considering the new policy offerings a blessing in disguise once her case was reported out. Such a reversal has been typical of these features; it’s not to say that their cancelled policies are not of urgent concern, but it quite clearly indicates we’re not getting the whole story.

This is why a greater focus on state-run exchanges could be so edifying, not only for viewers but for lawmakers. Noah mentioned that Kentucky’s number would be defining success down. Not so: Kentucky logged 6% of its expected enrollment in October, considerably higher than the .3% that the analogous Massachusetts enrolled in its first month. From Massachusetts we know that enrollment jolts up about halfway through the open period, followed by a mad dash of young’uns at the very end. Encouragingly, one-third of enrollees in Kentucky are below thirty-five, and a good chunk below 25, matching the insurance companies’ hoped-for actuarial mix. And Kentucky’s only in the median range of successful states when it comes to enrollments.

Kentucky is metonymic of the possibilities of the exchanges. I’ll again state we should not, in the slightest, let the federal government off the hook for its woeful performance with HealthCare.gov. But neither should we just hunt for failures to investigate—lest the “broad, systemic problems” with the law turn out to be just our narrow processing of it.

Noah Rothman:

While I am aware of the details of the claims of Think Progress’ Sy Mukherjee, he may not be aware of the results of a recent study conducted by Public Opinion Strategies:

• Some 31 percent of franchise businesses and 12 percent of non-franchise businesses say they have already reduced worker hours because of the law.
• About 27 percent of franchise businesses and 12 percent of non-franchise businesses have already replaced full-time workers with part-time employees because of the law.
• Some 41 percent of the non-franchise firms say they already see health-care costs rising because of the law.
• As the franchise firms look toward the future, 28 percent of them say they’ll stop offering health coverage in 2015 because of the law. One-third of franchise businesses already do not offer health insurance.

The notion that the ACA has created a part-time economy is not entirely true. Those who claim that it will not, however, are ignoring their own talking points: the law has not even been fully implemented yet.

To the point that there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that those who are losing their health care plans can eventually access new plans that could be marginally better and potentially less expensive, there is just as much – if not more – statistical evidence which indicates that many more are losing their insurance and are paying far more for the same amount of coverage (if they can get coverage at all).

The president and his party sold the public on the idea that there would be no “losers” as a result of the law; there would only be winners. Today, that is demonstrably untrue. As a result of the panic that has overtaken the Democratic Party with their deception having been laid bare, they and the president are eagerly – anxiously – attacking the financial foundations upon which the law is made sound.

Don’t believe me? Ask arch-conservative anti-Obamacare stalwart Ezra Klein. Each of the proposed “fixes,” including the president’s, threatens the financial health of the law in the short term. Each, according to National Journal’s Ron Brownstein, could usher in the “death spiral.”

Anecdotal evidence that some, like Mrs. Barrette, can (not have) accessed new and better insurance plans is not the focus of the story because to focus on anecdotes is misdirection. The aim is to obscure the story, not shed light on an underreported but central element of it.

Speaking of talking points being ignored, it was Democrats who pointed to the Massachusetts model as an example of how, when the mandate’s penalty phase drew near, young and healthy uninsured rushed to sign up. It’s funny, then, how this talking point evaporated when the president unilaterally delayed the penalty phase to align with the end of the ACA’s open enrollment period. The smart money is on those betting that the penalty will again be delayed as the nonfunctioning website passes the November 30 date the administration set for it to function. What will those masses of healthy uninsured do then?

Every day, the private insurance market is flooded with sick and infirmed. Each day this is the case, the dreaded premium spike envisioned for 2014-2015, which will accelerate the flight of healthy people away from the insurance market, looks more like a reality. That self-perpetuating cycle is called a “death spiral” for a reason.

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Check back next week for our next installment of the debate series. Topic and panelists TBA.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.