Sometimes I just have to ask myself: why do the media continue to trot out stories about how “confused” the public is about the recent health reform bill President Obama just signed into law? Whether it’s stoking the flames of cynicism among party- and Obama-faithful as to when his Change mantra will actually apply, or feeding the ire of conservatives and tea-baggers as a means of magnifying antipathy toward anything the president pushes — it seems as though many outlets are having a hard time just moving on to the next big policy point, domestic or foreign.

With regard to the implementation of the reform bill, is the devil really in the details? And if it’s all about details, why aren’t members of the media mainstream making it priority to report on facts concerning the bill’s rollout instead of focusing on innuendo and utilizing their dependably partisan stable of talking heads to criticize what they deem coming out of the White House and the federal government (DHS, CMS) as “political rhetoric”?

Probably because outlets thrive on ratings and controversy, whether manufactured or true. Just because passage of the bill has come and gone, in this age of always-on information agitprop, it becomes a media imperative to milk controversy and partisanship for all it’s worth. The same applies to healthcare reform. Welcome to the new war. Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t the only conflicts begging for a media-cum-political showdown. Healthcare infighting is alive and well on these shores, and we might as well settle in because détente is a long ways off. | LINK

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