The Media's Complicity in Cutting Social Security and Medicare (CBO's Latest Projections Ignored)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.aljazeera.com/story/2013922155740786144

The media's complicity in cutting Social Security and Medicare

Most people in the United States have probably heard about the Wall Street efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. There is a vast list of organisations such as Campaign to Fix the Debt, the Can Kicks Back, Third Way, and many more that have, as a central agenda item, cutting back or privatising Social Security and Medicare. When we hear one of these organisations tell us these programmes should be cut it is not a surprise.

The question is why do mainstream news outlets including the New York Times and Washington Post use their news sections to tell the same stories? Last week, when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued new long-range budget projections, both papers were quick to ignore the numbers and to tell readers that we have to cut Social Security and Medicare.

The reason why this coverage was so bizarre is that it is not news that Social Security and Medicare will cost more in the decades ahead. We actually have known about the rising cost of these programmes for about 50 years. The birth of a huge number of baby boomers in the years 1946 to 1964 pretty much guaranteed this outcome - barring a horrible war, famine or epidemic.

While the aging of the baby boomers may not have qualified as news, there was actually important news in the CBO projections that went unmentioned in both newspapers. The CBO sharply lowered its projections for health care cost growth, meaning that Medicare, Medicaid, and other government health care programmes are now projected to cost much less in the decades ahead than had been assumed in prior years.

Gargantuan savings

This change is substantial. The new projections show that spending on Medicare will be equal to 4.6 percent of GDP in 2035. By comparison, last year, the CBO projected that the cost in 2035 would be 5.7 percent of GDP. Just two years ago, it had projected that Medicare would cost 5.9 percent of GDP in 2035.

The difference of 1.3 percentage points of GDP between the 2011 projection of Medicare costs and the most recent numbers would translate into almost $220 billion a year in today's economy. In other words, this is a big deal. The change in the CBO's projections of healthcare costs certainly comes closer to standard definitions of "news" than the aging of the baby boomers.

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Dean Baker is a US macroeconomist and co-founder of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research.

[gopiscrap]

1. because almost all major media is owned by corporations

it makes the msm nothing but a bunch of corporate whores.

[woo me with science]

2. This country marinates in propaganda.

North Korea has nothing on Wall Street America when it comes to manipulation and message immersion. The very best propaganda does not require coercion. It convinces you that you arrived at the corporate solution yourself.

[Cryptoad]

7. You just now figuring this out?

Now on to figuring out how to fight it....

[Uncle Joe]

3. The corporate media whether "liberal" moderate or conservative is first and foremost

the corporate media, as opposed to being the peoples' media.

Thanks for the thread, Hissyspit.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Ask that Fox dude if the media is supposed to sell the facts.

Fox dude hosed.

The media should be reporting relevant and important facts like the CBO report.

[Cryptoad]

8. Ummmmm ,,,,,

"In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an
assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or
falsifying the news in the United States.

"Fox" argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right
to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox
attorneys did not dispute Akre's claim that they pressured her to
broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to
do so."

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Fine. So declare yourself, regardless of what they can do, what should they do? Lie or speak truth?

Free speech means the right to lie. It does not make lying right. Or do you think it is right?

"Ummmmm ,,,,,"?

[DirkGently]

5. Yes. It's a ridiculous conceit that never gets called out.

All of this deficit hawk tapdancing around the SS surplus, falling deficits and lower healthcare cost projections to argue for drastic immediate cuts to SS is in completely bad faith.

No one actually thinks we are in a dire economic situation that must be solved by cutting Social Security. It is a ruse, a con, a lie agreed upon.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. K&R!!!!!!!!!! Bookmarked, too!

[sabrina 1]

10. Well, we were treated to the deceptions after the report by the CBO

right here on DU. So it's not just the MSM, it has now filtered onto Democratic Forums.

Good to see the rebuttals from all over the place.

Who pays attention to MSM anymore anyhow, they are NOT reliable news sources. They are Corporate Owned 'businesses'.

[Wilms]

11. ^