We’ve seen it happen before: disinformation, disseminated for political reasons, becomes a talking point, and then, maybe, conventional wisdom. And there’s a real risk of this happening with respect to the House’s health care proposal.
Time‘s Mark Halperin is linking to this morning’s Associated Press story, which repeats the claim–based on the claim of one anonymous Democratic aide–that the bill will cost $1.5 trillion. But the Congressional Budget Office–normally the arbiter of these things for reporters–says the bill will cost significantly less. One trillion dollars, specifically. And that’s the number House health care leaders–and most reporters–cite on the record when asked.
Not the AP, though. They seem to be standing by their flimsy story. Flimsy or not, though, it’s starting to take hold.
