NPR to Reporters: Stop Using the Term ‘Obamacare’ So Much

Is it “Obamacare” or the “Affordable Care Act”? The terms have become increasingly interchangeable since it was first signed into law in 2010. But as we learned from Jimmy Kimmel last week, Americans don’t necessarily realize they’re the same thing. Now, one major news organization is taking steps towards a clarification on when to use each term in its reporting.

NPR’s standards editor Stuart Seidel has sent a memo to editors and reporters asking them to “avoid overusing ‘Obamacare’” and make sure that the first reference to the law in all pieces is the “Affordable Care Act.” The memo came in response to a letter from the Maynard Institute’s Richard Prince who said “the term can no longer be defended as neutral.”

Seidel wrote to NPR staff:

“‘Obamacare’ seems to be straddling somewhere between being a politically-charged term and an accepted part of the vernacular. And it seems to be on our air and in our copy a great deal. (I haven’t counted, and I’m not going to count: numbers don’t add up to good journalism.) But word choices do leave an impression. Please avoid overusing ‘Obamacare.’ On first reference, it’s best to refer to the ‘Affordable Care Act’ or ‘the health care law.’ On later references, feel free to use ‘Obamacare’ but mix it up with other ways to refer to the law.”

President Obama himself famously embraced the term “Obamacare” in the run-up to the 2012 election. “I have no problem with folks saying ‘Obamacares,’” the president said at a town hall event in 2011. “I do care.” But some pundits, including NBC News’ Chuck Todd, believe Obama made a “complete mistake” in embracing “Obamacare” because it inevitably “politicizes” the issue.

That observation is borne out by a recent CNBC poll, which shows that the word “Obamacare” elicits both more positive and more negative reactions than the more neutral-sounding “Affordable Care Act.” The poll found that 29% of Americans supports Obamacare compared with 22% who support the Affordable Care Act. 46% oppose Obamacare while only 37% oppose the Affordable Care Act.

Despite these facts, most news organizations continue to use the two terms interchangeably without recognition of the differing connotations they elicit. As the government shutdown, which brought into being by the fight over “Obamacare,” continues into its second week, NPR is attempting to address the issue.

Via: Mediaite.com

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Software, Design Defects Cripple Health-Care Website

Six days into the launch of insurance marketplaces created by the new health-care law, the federal government acknowledged for the first time Sunday it needed to fix design and software problems that have kept customers from applying online for coverage.

The Obama administration said last week that an unanticipated surge of Web traffic caused most of the problems and was a sign of high demand by people seeking to buy coverage under the new law.

But federal officials said Sunday the online marketplace needed design changes, as well as more server capacity to improve efficiency on the federally run exchange that serves 36 states.

"We can do better and we are working around the clock to do so," said Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services. The government is making software and hardware changes to smooth the process of creating accounts needed to gain access to the marketplace, federal officials said.

The federal government acknowledged for the first time it needed to fix design and software problems that have kept customers from applying online for health-care coverage. Christopher Weaver reports on digits. Photo: Getty Images.

The website is troubled by coding problems and flaws in the architecture of the system, according to insurance-industry advisers, technical experts and people close to the development of the marketplace.

Among the technical problems thwarting consumers, according to some of those people, is the system to confirm the identities of enrollees. Troubles in the system are causing crashes as users try to create accounts, the first step before they can apply for coverage.

Via: Wall Street Journal

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Happy Birthday, Income Tax! Many unhappy returns began a hundred years ago, in October 1913.

Amid all the attention paid to the government shutdown — more of a “slimdown,” as 83 percent of the government remains open — few people noticed that last Friday, October 4, marked the 100th anniversary of the federal income tax. The size and intrusiveness of the federal government that is at the heart of today’s shutdown would never have been possible without the income tax.

For a century and a quarter, the United States avoided an income tax. Thomas Jefferson warned against such “internal” taxes, saying that under the British they had “filled our land with officers and opened our doors to their intrusions.” Until the early 20th century, a small federal government relied on import duties and taxes on alcohol and tobacco for most of its revenue.

Congress passed an income tax to fund the Civil War in 1862 but allowed it to expire a decade later. In 1894, it passed another — a 2 percent flat-rate income tax that kicked in at today’s equivalent of $110,000. It was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because it was not apportioned among the states, as the U.S. Constitution required.

Then, during the Progressive era, supporters of the tax passed the 16th Amendment, giving Congress the power to tax income, and in 1913 Congress approved a tax with a series of rates ranging from 2 to 7 percent. But high personal exemptions meant that fewer than one out of every 50 Americans owed any tax at all.

Via: National Review Online

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[CARTOON] Red Tape Monster

Via: California Political Review

Healthy Young, Key to Obamacare, Aren’t Buying It

Obamacare “only works … if young people show up.”

That’s from former President Bill Clinton in a recent MSNBC interview.

It’s why Obamacare supporters and government agencies are trying everything from sports advertising to video contests to get young people in the game.

But will those millions of Millennials show up and sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act?

A recent Reuters poll found Obamacare may not attract enough young people to keep costs low for others, despite a headline that asserts the opposite:  “Poll shows healthy young adults may keep Obamacare afloat.”

The conflict between headline and data represents a collision between the hopes of survey respondents and economic logic.

The poll found that a little more than a third of young adults in its survey had tried and failed to purchase health insurance in the past. It also found that a third hoped to be able to buy health insurance now.

Reuters figured if just half of them do so, “the White House would easily meet its goal of getting 2.7 million young adults — out of about 16 million uninsured 19-to-29-year-olds —  to buy Obamacare insurance for 2014.”

This group couldn’t afford health insurance before, and Reuters never bothers to explain how they’ll afford it when it gets more expensive.

Monthly premiums under Obamacare will go up for young people in all 50 states, according to a study released Thursday by the center-right American Action Forum. Premiums will average more than $187 per month in 2014, up from $62 per month in 2013, a 202 percent increase, the study said.

Several Millennials told us why they won’t bother to sign up.

Via: California Political Review

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Family Doctor: I Want to Take Care of My Patients

As a family doctor, I have always believed in treating the whole person.

Every person is a unique individual, and you can’t cookie-cutter medical care; it’s individualized. I am concerned about health care under the new law, and my patients are very concerned.

Medicine has changed so much in my lifetime. My father had two kinds of patients in the 1950s and 1960s: those who paid in cash, and those he did charity work for. Back in those days, hospitals were not run by huge consolidated corporations – they were run by churches and charity organizations.

We can’t go back to those long-gone days of charity hospitals. And today, one part of living well often involves private health insurance—as long as government regulators don’t interferewith the individualized care that other doctors and I are providing. People having choices is a very important part of medical care.

In the past three decades, I have seen health care become more and more regulated by government. Of the 15 employees I hire, five of their jobs are completely devoted to filling out insurance forms and government paperwork. All that administrative work can detract from time spent on patient care.

It makes it difficult to take care of the whole person—body, mind, and spirit—if you don’t have an environment where you are free to do that. The biggest problem with Obamacare is that there are going to be layers and layers of government bureaucracy that will try to tell me how to treat patients I’ve helped for over 25 years. More federal control is the foundation of it.

Via: The Foundry

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Waxman Scolds Cable Lobby for Blasting NBC Obamacare Ads

Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) recently criticized a Time Warner Cable lobbyist for suggesting that NBC is exhibiting bias in its coverage of the Affordable Care Act. However, Waxman failed to disclose his own campaign contributions from Comcast Corp., the parent company of NBCUniversal.

Waxman, the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote a letter Friday raising concerns about an email he said the lobbyist sent to Republican staffers in the House and Senate. “Next time you think about helping the broadcasters—particularly the networks—read this…,” the email said, followed by a link to the Weekly Standard blog post, “NBC Launches Week of Programming to ‘Help’ Obamacare Succeed.”

The post pertains to an NBC press release announcing the network’s “Ready or Not, the New Healthcare Law” initiative, a series of social media forums, on air reports, and online resources designed “to help shed light on what the health care act means for [consumers] and explain how to enroll.”

“A broadcaster has a public service obligation and should be informing viewers about the new options for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act,” Waxman wrote in his letter to the lobbyist.

“On the other hand, a cable company should not be pandering to the worst instincts of the reckless Republican extremists that seem to be running the House of Representatives.”

Via: WFB

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Lawmakers probe reports of property owners kicked off federal land amid partial shutdown

Republican lawmakers plan to investigate mounting reports that federal officials are kicking families out of their homes and shuttering private businesses because they sit on federal parkland -- describing the spectacle as an over-the-top response to the partial government shutdown. 

"We are receiving a lot of reports" of businesses being shut down, said Mallory Micetich, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee. 

She confirmed the committee is investigating these reports, as part of a widening probe into the National Park Service's response to the partial government suspension. 

Micetich cited as one example a privately run inn along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. 

The innkeeper tried, unsuccessfully, to repel federal efforts to shut down his business, the Pisgah Inn, last week. 

Owner Bruce O'Connell told FoxNews.com on Monday that rangers are still outside his business, blocking the entrance to the parking lot. As of late Monday morning, he said there were three cars and five rangers stationed outside. 

Via: Fox News

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Kirsten Powers to Fox Panel: Dems Already Conceded on Budget, So ‘What’s the Negotiation?’

Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers and guest Tony Sayegh sparred over the past and future of the debt ceiling on Fox News Monday morning, with Sayegh and host Martha MacCallum arguing that the threat of default was the perfect spur for President Barack Obama and Congress to negotiate new spending practices, and Powers arguing that budget concessions had already been made and that the Republicans were negotiating in bad faith.

“Democrats have agreed to stay at sequestraition levels, which is something that was not popular,” Powers said. “This is not the budget they want, and this is not popular in the Democratic caucus. It’s something Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had to bring them around to agree to. So I wouldn’t say there aren’t any concessions going on. In terms of the negotiations, I think the president will end up negotiating over the debt ceiling. I think what he’s trying to stop is this brinksmanship of every time the debt debate comes up, it feels like the government is being held hostage.”

“But if you don’t have that discussion,” MacCallum said, “then you’re going 17, 18, 19, 20 where’s the end of the trillion dollars of debt? When this question comes up, it’s an important time to think about how much you’re spending, is it not?”

“The idea that there’s some middle ground the Republicans are trying to reach, there’s some negotiation that they’ve offering up—I haven’t seen it,” Powers replied. “What’s the negotiation? Even over the government shutdown: the big negotiation is, ‘We’re going to defund ObamaCare.’ That’s not a negotiation.”

“The president’s position not to negotiation is indefensible,” Sayegh said. “There’s one thing both side agree on. Default would be devastating. So let’s take it off the table. The president gets enough revenue into the federal treasury to pay our interest payment. That is the only way you default, is by not paying that. Which is why you had Republicans after the 2011 debt ceiling showdown pass the Full Faith and Credit Act in the House, that mandates the president pay that payment, and allows the executive branch to prioritize other payments. Democrats refused to take it up in the Senate, and the president even threatened a veto if it passed Congress.”

“If that’s true, why did Ronald Reagan say there was a prospect of default if they didn’t raise the debt ceiling?” Powers responded.

“Ronald Reagan negotiated, Kirsten,” Sayegh said. “We agree that default is disruptive and should not be on the table. The reality is the debt problems are much more long term. These are structural problems with our entitlements and other spending programs we have in this country, that’s driving our debt and deficit. Those are going to take some time to hammer out, which is why in 2011 you saw the two sides try to do a grand bargain. The president won. He got his way on the fiscal cliff, he got his way on sequestration. This time the can can’t be kicked down any further. John Boehner (R-OH) has said if we are going to solve this problem, let’s do it comprehensively, let’s at least get both people at the table, talking. The president refused to do so.”

Watch the full clip below, via Fox News:

Via: Mediate.com

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Why Justice Scalia Dropped His WashPost Subscription: It's 'Slanted and Often Nasty...Shrilly, Shrilly Liberal'

Jennifer Senior at New York magazine interviewed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and she wanted it to sound big: "most outsiders tend to regard him as either a demigod on stilts or a menace to democracy, depending on which side of the aisle they sit." She found him "more puckish than formal."

He informally dismissed the nation's top newspapers as too impossibly liberal to pay for, especially The Washington Post:

What’s your media diet? Where do you get your news?

Well, we get newspapers in the morning.

“We” meaning the justices?

No! Maureen and I.

Oh, you and your wife …

I usually skim them. We just get The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times. We used to get the Washington Post, but it just … went too far for me. I couldn’t handle it anymore.

What tipped you over the edge?

It was the treatment of almost any conservative issue. It was slanted and often nasty. And, you know, why should I get upset every morning? I don’t think I’m the only one. I think they lost subscriptions partly because they became so shrilly, shrilly liberal. [Emphasis in the original.]

So no New York Times, either?

No New York Times, no Post.

And do you look at anything online?

I get most of my news, probably, driving back and forth to work, on the radio.

Not NPR?

Sometimes NPR. But not usually.

Maybe he turns it off at the first sound of Nina Totenberg, NPR's "shrilly, shrilly liberal" Supreme Court reporter. Later, when Scalia laments the passing away of bipartisan Washington gatherings like those at the house of the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, the magazine writer tried for an “aha” moment:

True, though earlier you expressed your preference for conservative media, which itself can be isolating in its own way.

Oh, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon! [Laughs.] Social intercourse is quite different from those intellectual outlets I respect and those that I don’t respect. I read newspapers that I think are good newspapers, or if they’re not good, at least they don’t make me angry, okay? That has nothing to do with social intercourse. That has to do with “selection of intellectual fodder,” if you will.

It never stops being amazing to watch liberals say conservatives get "isolated" in conservative media, trying to avoid the other point of view, and liberals.....never do that?

Via: Newsbusters

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