The Lie of the Year .... that the press gave life to.

[Clio the Leo]

PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: 'A government takeover of health care'
By Bill Adair, Angie Drobnic Holan
Published on Thursday, December 16th, 2010 at 11:30 p.m.

In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul America's health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a "government takeover."

"Takeovers are like coups," Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. "They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom."

The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the "public option" concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan.

But as Republicans smelled serious opportunity in the midterm elections, they didn't let facts get in the way of a great punchline. And few in the press challenged their frequent assertion that under Obama, the government was going to take over the health care industry.

<snip>

The phrase proliferated in the media even after Democrats dropped the public option. In 2010 alone, "government takeover” was mentioned 28 times in the Washington Post, 77 times in Politico and 79 times on CNN. A review of TV transcripts showed "government takeover" was primarily used as a catchy sound bite, not for discussions of policy details.

In most transcripts we examined, Republican leaders used the phrase without being challenged by interviewers. For example, during Boehner's Jan. 31 appearance on Meet the Press, Boehner said it five times. But not once was he challenged about it.

In rare cases when the point was questioned, the GOP leader would recite various regulations found in the bill and insist that they constituted a takeover. But such followups were rare.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/

[pinto]

1. Great analysis and right to the point. The press is failing the public.

:kick:

[Martin Eden]

2. Obamacare

The term "Obamacare" has been used so extensively by the right as a way to disparage the Health Care Reform legislation that it has become the most commonly used term for HCR -- and not just by rightwingers.

This is how they win ... they hammer away every day by pushing language to re-frame the issues. They repeatedly employ extreme characterizations like labeling Obama a socialist and a marxist regardless of how far the president has moved to the right and capitulated to Republican demands. This serves two purposes: the core wingnuts will readily believe this nonsense, and the public in general (though not necessarily embracing the extreme characterizations) will nevertheless accept the notion that Obama is indeed pretty far to the left.

Thus are the goalposts slowly but steadily moved to the right.

We had HOPE that Obama would CHANGE this by cutting through all that BS with the same kind of eloquence that got him elected, but instead he has become a willing or an unwitting accomplice to the steady rightward shift.

[katandmoon]

3. When it was really "A government shaking down citizens for the benefit of the insurance industry"