Gray Lady Still ‘Unexpectedly’ Suffering From Severe Butterfield Effect Symptoms
At the Corner, Yuval Levin writes another Timesman is giving Fox Butterfield plenty of competition in the naïveté department:
The New York Times’s Fox Butterfield is famous for repeatedly reporting with astonishment that crime rates went down as the prison population went up without giving much heed to the possibility that the two trends might be correlated rather than (as the paper’s house ideology insists) contradictory. Here’s a good instance.
Well, he now seems to have some competition in the “incredulous about cause and effect” department at the Times. In today’s paper, Times business reporter Reed Abelson notes with barely masked bewilderment that insurance premiums are rising sharply as Obamacare’s insurance regulations begin to take effect. The opening paragraph is just perfect:
Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.
Huh, how did that happen?
Read the whole thing.
“Huh, how did that happen?”
Obviously corporate greed. Those evil health insurance company CEOs are raising premiums because they can blame the increases on ObamaCare. This just proves that capitalism is a failed system and that the federal government must take over the entire health care sector (after imprisoning health insurance company CEOs or adding them to Obama’s drone target list). It’s for the children. Oh, and the poor. And the minorities. And the women. Unless they are Republicans or (gasp!) libertarians.
It must be wonderful to be a journ0list – here’s a typical day:
9:30 am – Democrat politician drops a huge rock on journ0list’s foot.
10:30 am – Journ0list stricken with sudden attack of terrible foot pain. Proceeds to write story about epidemic of incapcitating foot injuries which are striking people OUT OF THE BLUE with NO APPARENT CAUSE!
11:30 am – Journ0list wins Pulitzer Prize for ground-breaking investigative journ0lism on foot disease.
12:30 pm – Journ0list quits job for high-profile gig at CNN.
1:30 pm – Journ0list prize winner never heard from again.