No reporter is free from bias.
The best a reporter can do is to try 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 No 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 anti-selection and driving young adults' claims through the roof. But the fact that it hasn't done much before its 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.
The authors brush aside the PPACA provision requiring the federal government to provide exchange services in states that do not have their own exchange programs, and they assume that they know 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?
Some Democrats are continuing to defend another health policy-related argument that does not seem to follow from reality: the idea that the federal budget deficit doesn't really matter.
On the one hand, the long-term 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.
But the idea that we're fine, because China is not going to seize California if we default, truly does not follow.
No matter how patient China is, or how reluctant China is to try to take California by force, the real problem with runaway deficit spending is that it means we're promising what is likely to be the same dollar to two, three or more different people.
One great question is whether increased government spending decreases private-sector productivity. Even assuming for the sake of argument that that's not the case, if we don't spend the money borrowed on activities that 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.
We may wake up in 2025 and discover that we lack the roads, energy or food, let alone the hospitals, nursing homes and health care workers, that we need to make good on the idealistic promises we've made.
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