Echo chamber: Bloomberg "commentary" health IT falsehood goes from Limbaugh to WSJ's Moore and Fox, back to Limbaugh

Media Matters by Eric Boehlert, Jamison Foser | Feb. 10, 2009 (News Analysis)

Summary: The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore and Fox News anchors Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly promoted the falsehood -- which first appeared in a Bloomberg "commentary" by Betsy McCaughey and was subsequently promoted by Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge -- that the economic recovery bill includes a provision that would, in Moore's words, "hav[e] the government essentially dictate treatments." Limbaugh later took credit for spreading this story. Full Story »

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 by Dale Penn - Feb. 11, 2009

This news analysis does a thorough job of covering what the authors term the "echo chamber." A conservative opinion piece (see link below) is picked up by Rush Limbaugh and the next day is in turn picked up by Fox and treated as fact (and even expounded upon), then Limbaugh takes credit for getting the story out there. in the meantime there is no apparent critical thinking going on to question whether or not the original opinion piece was accurate. The bio of the author of the original piece shows that she has done work for conservative think tanks and was discredited previously for faulty reporting on healthcare issues during the Clinton Administration's efforts to reform healthcare.

This article documents the effects of the conservative echo chamber used to muddy the water whenever they are losing ground on an issue - in this case the stimulus. This is likely one of the biggest hurdles to Obama's call for bi-partisanship, as Rush Limbaugh has said outright that he hopes Obama fails as a President!

In fact, the language in the House bill that McCaughey referenced does not establish authority to “monitor treatments” or restrict what “your doctor is doing” with regard to patient care but, rather, addresses establishing an electronic records system such that doctors would have complete, accurate information about their patients “to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care.”

Dale posted this story.

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