Don’t believe everything you read.

Posted January, 20 2012 by arianne

With the idea that all people deserve quality, affordable health care now such a partisan issue in the presidential race, it’s no wonder the media has been flooded with articles, editorials, polls and research on the topic.

You could easily read one thing telling you Americans love health reform and then turn around and see another saying Americans hate health reform, with both somehow having the numbers to back them up.

So, who is right?

Well, that’s a tricky issue.  See, people can use numbers to show whatever they want them to show, but they don’t often show you the fine print.  This is a topic covered today in a guest piece written in The New Republic by Harold Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago, and Vivek Murthy, a physician and co-founder of Doctors for America.

The article spotlights a piece that came out in Forbes recently that said that doctors are against “Obamacare.”  It cited a poll to prove this.

But, it turns out the Forbes article wasn’t telling the whole story.  Pollack and Murthy explain this by going through to point out the polling information that the Forbes article actually left out.  They also point out many other facts that are left out.  The result? Well, it turns out that all doctors everywhere can’t be defined by a single poll.  And, all things considered, it looks like most doctors probably do like health reform.

Anyways, it’s definitely a good read.  If anything, it serves as a good reminder that much of what you read on contentious issues like health reform should be taken with a grain of salt.  Especially during an election year!

Click here to read the New Republic article, appropriately titled “No, Doctors Don’t Hate Obamacare.”