Medicare-for-all popularity

FakeNews: "Medicare-for-all is popular". RealNews: Medicare-for-all is popular... amongst the uninformed.

FakeNews, "Medicare-for-all is popular", even in red states. RealNews: Medicare-for-all is popular amongst the uninformed. Support drops below 37 percent (58% opposed) if survey takers are told that the bill would eliminate private insurance companies. FakeNews outlets love to popularize that Medicare-for-all myth. That's not news, it's propaganda.

ℹ️ Info

~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2019-03-11

ABC spends time breathlessly talking about how great support for Medicare-for-all, even in red states, but buried in the 21st paragraph, is a link to the source (KFF) report. To quote the first paragraph of the KFF report: ^[1]

❝ Yet, it is unclear how much staying power this support has once people become aware of the details of any plan or hear arguments on either side. Public support for Medicare-for-all shifts significantly when people hear arguments about potential tax increases or delays in medical tests and treatment (Figure 9) and recent polling also shows many people falsely assume they would be able to keep their current health insurance under a single-payer plan (Figure 10), suggesting another potential area for decreased support. ❞
~ KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) report ℹ️ Public Opinion on Single-Payer, National Health Plans, and Expanding Access to Medicare Coverage

There's also the slide (image) I use from the report, which shows how far support falls when people know what Medicare-for-all actually means. KFF Tracking Poll that shows when the uninformed are asked about Medicare-for-all, they love it. When they are told what that means (more taxes, cuts to the current medicare, delays in treatment, eliminate private insurance) the support goes down. Add in all of the above, and support would be subterranean.

Conclusion[edit | edit source]

While this was just the ABC example, there are others that have made the same claims, in varying degrees. If you walked away thinking it was popular, and not knowing that's only because the supporters don't know what it means, then you've been the victim of FakeNews. Face it, when Slate (which reported the truth that it only popular when people don't know better), is giving you better news (facts) than your sources, then it's time for your sources to get out of the journalism business. Well, technically, they already are out, they just haven't admitted it (or you haven't realized it)... yet.

So while the Study isn't fake, what people think it meant, and what it actually said, are diametrically opposed. So it's only Fake Study if you think KFF (or any study) said voters support Medicare-for-all. What it said is that voters who support Medicare-for-all are the least informed on what Medicare-for-all actually means, and when they find out, they're horrified. So it makes a good talking point for both the uninformed (Democrats) and informed (Republicans), for different reasons.