ObamaCare: Lazy WaPo bloggers relay bogus Dem talking point

posted at 12:43 pm on March 17, 2010 by Karl

Fisking is so some other year, but the latest hackery from Ezra Klein contains a larger point:

For some time, I’ve been trying to find good polling from the passage of Medicare. According to Greg Sargent, though, the Democrats beat me to it…

Per Sargent, the Dem PR contains polling numbers from the 1960s that underscore how controversial Medicare was in the months leading up to its historic passage. But the numbers are mostly from JFK’s failed effort in 1962, with one Harris poll from “after Lyndon Johnson was elected” showing minority support.

However, the Dems cribbed this data from Jennifer Agiesta at the Washington Post — the same company that directly employs Klein and owns the site where Sargent blogs. Indeed, Sargent links to Agiesta’s post. You will be shocked to discover that the Dems — and Klein and Sargent — left out what Agiesta ultimately reported from the same Harris poll:

Asked another way, 62 percent said they favored “President Johnson’s program of medical care for the aged under Social Security.” A smaller majority, 56 percent, backed the American Medical Association’s alternative plan, which would have “everyone who could afford it covered by private health insurance” and “those who couldn’t afford it …covered under a government health plan.”

In short, about as many people wanted Medicare then as oppose ObamaCare now. The Dems’ talking point is a joke. And while Klein claims he was looking for this data for some time, it took me less than a minute to find the earlier WaPo piece on Google.

Ezra Klein: Disingenuous partisan hack or incompetent researcher — you be the judge!

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Update: Megan McArdle looks at the Gallup data on Medicare to conclude that “it wasn’t passed despite terrible polling, with a controversial process, by a political party that was tanking in popularity thanks to a grinding recession.” I just think it’s worse that Klein and Sargent didn’t bother to note that the Democrats’ own source — and their own colleague — made the same basic point.

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