No reporter is free from bias.
The best a reporter can do is to try to write in such a way that the syntax itself roots out as much bias as possible, to reduce the likelihood that a reader who holds differing views will hurl the print publication containing the article against the wall. Or, if the reader is reading the article on the Web, to keep the reader from responding to the article by damaging a computer, smart phone or other electronic device.
There is already too much violence against inanimate objects in this world. No need for reporters to encourage more.
My own bias is that I have a liberal heart (unlimited health care for everyone, and especially cute babies!), a conservative head ("There Ain't Know Such Thing as a Free Lunch"), a weak stomach (Why can't the Democrats and Republicans see how nervous they're making me and work something out?) and a tendency to want to throw many newspapers against walls.
This week, I've encountered three memes that trigger my newspaper-throwing instincts.
One is the Republican idea that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) hasn't yet done anything to bring down the number of people without health insurance.
Well, love PPACA or hate it, of course it hasn't done anything to bring down the number of people without insurance. Hardly any of it is in place yet. Most of it takes effect in 2014. Why would it have decreased the number of uninsured people?
And, apparently, it actually has increased the number of young adults with insurance.
The law may be stupid for all sorts of reasons. The increase in the young adult coverage rate could backfire, by encouraging antiselection and driving young adults' claims through the roof. But the fact that it hasn't done much before it's really taken effect is not a major weakness.
On the Democratic side, the new silly idea of the week is encapsulated in an Urban Institute study about implementation of the PPACA health insurance distribution exchange provisions.
I opened the study PDF eagerly. What could be better for a PPACA implementing wrestling match fan than a state-by-state review of exchange implementation efforts?
But what the researchers did was to estimate how many people will get health insurance if exchanges are in place, then classify states by whether they have an exchange implementation plan or not, then project how many people will or will not get health coverage because their state has or has not set up exchanges.
One reason to throw the PDF against a virtual wall is that, if you're going to assume PPACA will work at all as expected, then why not assume the federal government will do an OK job of living up to the PPACA obligations for it to provide exchange services in states where the state governments fail to do so?
But the other reason for shoe throwing is the temerity — the audacity — of assuming that one knows just how many people will end up with health coverage in 2014 if a state sets up an exchange or does not set up an exchange.
Whether the exchange system turns out to be good or not, how can one reasonably assume one has accurate enough projections to cheer or a pan a state based on those highly speculative numbers?
An argument like that might appeal to people who already love PPACA passionately but surely will not sway any skeptics.
A third, older popular health care-related idea that clearly does not follow from reality is the argument being made by some Democrats that the federal budget deficit — including the health care spending that contributes to that deficit — is of little or no importance.
On the one hand, the long-run financial health of the country won't matter if we've all starved to death, died of a plague, or if been conquered by nasty space aliens. Sometimes, you've got to blow out all stops, ignore purist ideologies, and spend money now.
And, the arguments about liquidity traps are complicated. Maybe it's reasonable – not necessarily correct, but, at least reasonable – to make the case that we sometimes have to spend a lot to get past liquidity traps that otherwise could bring the whole system crashing down.
But the assertion that deficits don't really matter that much because we owe most of the money to ourselves, and China isn't going to start a war over what we owe it, truly does not follow.
The possibility that a U.S. default on bonds might anger the bondholders is of some concern. But the real problem is not that China might try to seize California in an effort to get its money back. The real problem is that, if we let deficits get out of hand and aren't spending the money borrowed on activities that very clearly will produce a high rate of GDP return, we're lying to ourselves about the resources we're going to have to support the elderly, pay for health care and take care of other needs.
A ballooning deficit means that we're promising to pay the same dollar to two, three or more different people. We might spur sales of McMansions today, only to find 20 years from now that the hospitals and nursing homes we desperately need have been running on fumes for decades and have no ability to meet the idealistic requirements we have imposed upon them.
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