Ohio media slow to report budget-busting Obamacare figures

1/12/2015

By Jason Hart | Ohio Watchdog

Ohio’s legacy press has been slow to acknowledge enrollment for budget-busting Medicaid expansion yet quick to spin the numbers — when reporting them at all.

Gov. John Kasich, who in 2013 expanded Medicaid to able-bodied childless adults to bring Obamacare money to the state, estimated 366,000 would enroll by July 2015. November 2014 enrollment was 450,941, according to the Ohio Department of Medicaid.

Newspapers covered Kasich’s months-long 2013 fight with the Ohio General Assembly as a horse race with the assumption Kasich should win. The press is nowtalking up Kasich’s efforts to renew the Obamacare expansion — with little regard for his bad estimates.

On Jan. 6, Northeast Ohio Media Group reporter Jackie Borchardt wrote at Cleveland.com that Medicaid expansion “allowed nearly 400,000 Ohioans to enroll in federal- and state-funded medical insurance.” Enrollment has been greater than 400,000 since August.

Contacted with a correction, Borchardt did not respond.

A Nov. 7 story by NEOMG reporter Robert Higgs titled “Ohio’s Medicaid costs expected to be about $470M lower than anticipated” noted Obamacare expansion enrollment was higher than projected. Higgs presented this as good news because the federal government is covering all benefit costs.

Ohio Watchdog reported Dec. 16 enrollment in the Obamacare Medicaid expansion had topped 450,000 and was 24 percent higher than the Kasich administration expected. Dayton Daily News published a story on the same enrollment numbers 13 days later.

The DDN story, which was picked up by the Associated Press, came too late for Columbus Dispatch reporter Catherine Candisky, who used a month-old “more than 430,000″ figure in a Dec. 23 story. Even the outdated figure was 20 percent higher than projections, but Candisky didn’t mention that.

In a similar Dispatch story published Nov. 7, Candisky used the latest available enrollment number but didn’t mention it was, at the time, 12 percent higher than budget estimates.

A Dec. 25 Cincinnati Enquirer story on Medicaid expansion cited the October enrollment figure from a Health Policy Institute of Ohio report, instead of the November figure released in mid-December and reported by Ohio Watchdog on Dec. 16.

Photo courtesy of The Buckeye Institute

LAWSON: Buckeye Institute policy analyst Greg Lawson

“The media coverage is about what is to be expected,” Greg Lawson, policy analyst for the free market Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, said in an email to Ohio Watchdog.

“Clearly, there has been limited coverage on the entirety of the Medicaid expansion debate,” Lawson said. “Critical information, including the reality of how Medicaid is funded, enrollment numbers, actual health outcomes, flawed rosy projections and long-term negative fiscal consequences for the state get relatively short shrift.”

The editorial boards of the Dispatch, NEOMG and Enquirer had all endorsed the Obamacare expansion by February 2013 and have advocated for the policy in both opinion and news coverage.

In April, the Dispatch editors put in black and white their official position, that opposition to Medicaid expansion was “purely ideological.” Dispatch coverage of the topic has included Candisky news stories with headlines such as “Medicaid expansion crucial to mentally ill” and “Without Medicaid expansion, poorest lose.”

From Feb. 4 to Oct. 4, the Dispatch published 85 news stories about the Obamacare expansion, quoting supporters 148 times and quoting critics 66 times. Comments from Medicaid expansion critics were consistently shorter than — and often sandwiched between — comments from supporters.

During the same period, the Dispatch published 19 op-eds and 16 editorials supporting the expansion, versus one op-ed and no editorials criticizing it.

“That is disappointing because it fails to provide a holistic context for the debate, thus making it easier for bad policy to be implemented,” Lawson explained.

“Sadly, this is a problem in many other policy areas, as well,” he added. “Emotional arguments and stories trump details and numbers because they are easier for everyone, from reporters and editors to readers, to connect with. Those of us in the free market that want to prevent bad public policy all have to find more innovative ways of describing the challenges so that our side is as easily understandable as the other.”

“In the meantime, we need to always speak the truth and have the facts at our fingertips,” Lawson said. “Eventually, the media will ask for it, even if it is only for an ‘I told you so.'”

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