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August 15, 2012 08:41 PM UTC

Reporter inspires respect for journalism by correcting spokesperson's facts about Medicare "cuts"

1 Comments
by: Jason Salzman

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Despite the onslaught of lies coming at them, some journalists push on, trying to set the record straight.

Take, for example, Kurtis Lee, writing in Wednesday’s Denver Post.

Lee paraphrased Coffman spokesman Owen Loftus as saying Democrats voted for “a perceived $500 billion in cuts to Medicare” as part of Obamacare.

Lee didn’t just let Loftus’ explosive salvo fly out the window. Instead, like the Pueblo Chieftain’s Peter Roper did a while back, he set the record straight.

Lee added the following paragraph after Loftus’ accusation:

In a Washington Post fact check of similar claims, the health care law tries to identify ways to save money, and so the $500 billion figure comes from the difference over 10 years between anticipated Medicare spending (what is known as “the baseline”) and the changes the law makes to reduce spending.

In other words, the $500 billion reduction in spending was achieved through saving money, not cutting the program. (And, incidentally, Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget adopted the same Medicare savings.)

Here’s more information from the Washington Post article that Lee cites:

The savings actually are wrung from health-care providers, not Medicare beneficiaries. These spending reductions presumably would be a good thing, since virtually everyone agrees that Medicare spending is out of control. In the House Republican budget, lawmakers repealed the Obama health care law but retained all but $10 billion of the nearly $500 billion in Medicare savings, suggesting the actual policies enacted to achieve these spending reductions were not that objectionable to GOP lawmakers.

Numerous other nonpartisan fact checkers have arrived at the same conclusion.

This hasn’t stopped the Romney campaign from leveling essentially the same Medicare attack in an ad airing today, and it’s depressing as shit to see factual discourse trashed to such an extreme degree.

But don’t you love journalism when a reporter, like Lee, stands up for the truth?

One thought on “Reporter inspires respect for journalism by correcting spokesperson’s facts about Medicare “cuts””

harrydoby says:

August 15, 2012 at 10:50 pm

Sad that the GOP chooses to distort what actually is happening here — it’s the “bending of the curve” of healthcare cost growth that Obama and others built into ACA.

Compounding the GOP’s failure is their attempt to hide their own agreement with the measure.

But with honest reporters attempting to do their jobs by sticking with the facts, this particularly egregious lie by the GOP is likely to cause them massive blowback, perhaps fatally wounding whatever credibility they might have had with voters, even (especially) in their own party.

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Reporter inspires respect for journalism by correcting spokesperson's facts about Medicare "cuts"

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One thought on “Reporter inspires respect for journalism by correcting spokesperson’s facts about Medicare “cuts””

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