As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, MSNBC is one of the least-trusted news organizations in America concerning information regarding ObamaCare.
Martin Bashir perfectly demonstrated why this is Wednesday when moments after the disastrous October enrollment numbers were revealed by the White House, he actually spun them positively saying, "[T]he Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is, in fact, alive and kicking" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
MARTIN BASHIR: A very good afternoon to you, and in spite of aggressive attacks by its opponents, in spite of zealous campaigns to prevent its passage and implementation, it may surprise some of you to learn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is, in fact, alive and kicking. Just moments ago, we got the long awaited enrollment numbers for the month of October. HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius announcing on a conference call that just over 106,000 signed up on the ACA private exchanges in the first month.
As the White House has warned, not up to their own or anyone else's expectations, but there's more. Nearly 400,000 have now been accessed as eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. And nearly a million customers have gotten all the way through the application process but have yet to select a plan.
Enrollments are improving, uninsured rates are going down, growth in healthcare costs is slowing, and even that troubled website is getting better.
I'd say the dishonesty on display here was unbelievable, but as NewsBusters has reported for years, Bashir is one of the most dishonest people on television today.
Consider first that he chose not to inform viewers that only about 27,000 people signed up at the federal exchange known as Healthcare.gov.
Even the perilously liberal Gloria Borger proclaimed this "a disaster" on CNN shortly after the numbers were released.
As for the Medicaid enrollment, someone as intellectually challenged as Bashir might think all of these people signing up for free healthcare is good. However, if that number continues to be four times those willing to pay for ObamaCare, the entire plan collapses.
I'm of course not surprised Bashir didn't tell viewers that.
Sadly, Bashir wasn't the only MSNBCer spinning these numbers as positive.
Ed Schultz did so on the program immediately following Bashir's actually claiming the numbers were "100 percent higher than yesterday."
What he was referring to was a report in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal that likely 50,000 or fewer people had enrolled at Healthcare.gov.
What Schultz dishonestly did was report and display on-screen the 106,185 total enrollees at the mixture of federal and state exchanges.
He failed to inform viewers that only about 27,000 signed up at Healthcare.gov - roughly 50 percent less than what the Journal had predicted.
That didn't stop Schultz who continued praising the numbers, nor did it deter MSNBC contributor and Salon editor Joan Walsh who later in the program actually said, "[T]hey got good news today on the number of enrollments."
Can you believe that?
This is why MSNBC is one of the least-trusted "news" organizations when it comes to ObamaCare.
