Halfway to Where? Answering the Key Questions of Health Care Reform (Policy Analysis) ⁠87%

By null null⁠92%

9/8/2009, 9:00:00 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Pessimism Bias, and Ambiguity (Equivocation), with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 51.4% saturation with 163 hits. Analysis detected 971 faulty-reasoning hits from 317 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 79.6% and a BS Rank of ⁠87% (2,894 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 86.80% of the article peer group.

Although neither the House nor the Senate passed a health care bill by President Obama’s August deadline, various pieces of legislation have made it through committee, and they provide a concrete basis for analyzing what the proposed health care reform would and would not do. 
Looking at the various bills that are moving on Capitol Hill, we can determine the following: 
Contrary to the Obama administration’s repeated assurances, millions of Americans who are happy with their current health insurance will not be able to keep it. 
As many as 89.5 million people may be dumped into a government-run plan. 
Some Americans may find themselves forced into a new insurance plan that no longer includes their current doctor. 
Americans will pay more than $820 billion in additional taxes over the next 10 years, and could see their insurance premiums rise as much as 95 percent. 
The current health care bills will increase the budget deficit by at least $239 billion over the next 10 years, and far more in the years beyond that. 
If the new health care entitlement were subject to the same 75-year actuarial standards as Social Security or Medicare, its unfunded liabilities would exceed $9.2 trillion. 
While the bills contain no direct provisions for rationing care, they nonetheless increase the likelihood of government rationing and interference with how doctors practice medicine. 
Contrary to assertions of some opponents, the bills contain no provision for euthanasia or mandatory end-of-life counseling. 
The bills’ provisions on abortion coverage are far murkier. 
In short, Americans will pay more and get less. 
Whatever the variation, however these bills are merged or compromised, this would be bad news for Americans. 
Michael D. 
Tanner is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and coauthor of Healthy Competition: What’s Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It (second edition, 2005). 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 7.9%null null: 9.7%The Daily Caller: 5.0%Confirmation Bias7.9%This article: 0.0%null null: 1.6%The Daily Caller: 0.7%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 12.3%null null: 6.4%The Daily Caller: 2.7%Availability Heuristic12.3%This article: 0.0%null null: 1.5%The Daily Caller: 0.8%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.1%The Daily Caller: 0.4%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 13.6%null null: 11.3%The Daily Caller: 3.3%Overconfidence Bias13.6%This article: 3.8%null null: 13.7%The Daily Caller: 10.4%Framing Effect3.8%This article: 5.7%null null: 3.5%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Loss Aversion5.7%This article: 0.0%null null: 2.1%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 1.0%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 8.2%The Daily Caller: 2.7%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 21.1%null null: 4.4%The Daily Caller: 2.5%Pessimism Bias21.1%This article: 51.4%null null: 8.8%The Daily Caller: 8.2%Negativity Bias51.4%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 1.2%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.5%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.6%The Daily Caller: 1.8%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.1%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 8.5%null null: 1.5%The Daily Caller: 1.6%Halo Effect8.5%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.7%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 8.8%null null: 1.1%The Daily Caller: 0.6%Primacy Effect8.8%This article: 3.2%null null: 0.4%The Daily Caller: 0.2%Blind-Spot Bias3.2%This article: 7.9%null null: 0.6%The Daily Caller: 1.1%Ad Hominem7.9%This article: 5.4%null null: 4.0%The Daily Caller: 1.3%Straw Man5.4%This article: 22.7%null null: 5.7%The Daily Caller: 4.6%Appeal to Authority22.7%This article: 13.9%null null: 9.9%The Daily Caller: 2.9%False Dilemma13.9%This article: 7.9%null null: 5.0%The Daily Caller: 2.4%Slippery Slope7.9%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.3%The Daily Caller: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 13.6%null null: 15.2%The Daily Caller: 6.3%Hasty Generalization13.6%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.4%Red Herring0.0%This article: 5.4%null null: 0.4%The Daily Caller: 1.0%Bandwagon5.4%This article: 4.1%null null: 2.8%The Daily Caller: 5.7%Appeal to Emotion4.1%This article: 8.2%null null: 6.0%The Daily Caller: 2.1%Begging the Question8.2%This article: 7.9%null null: 2.4%The Daily Caller: 3.5%Post Hoc (False Cause)7.9%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 17.4%null null: 2.8%The Daily Caller: 0.9%Burden of Proof17.4%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.6%The Daily Caller: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 2.8%null null: 0.4%The Daily Caller: 0.4%Composition/Division2.8%This article: 0.0%null null: 1.0%The Daily Caller: 1.5%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 20.2%null null: 3.0%The Daily Caller: 1.9%Ambiguity (Equivocation)20.2%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.4%The Daily Caller: 0.2%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.1%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 5.4%null null: 0.2%The Daily Caller: 0.2%Special Pleading5.4%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.1%The Daily Caller: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 5.0%null null: 1.6%The Daily Caller: 2.2%Unattributed Quote5.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 2.6%The Daily Caller: 1.8%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 6.0%null null: 16.2%The Daily Caller: 8.5%Biased Writer Voice6.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 12.7%The Daily Caller: 3.6%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%null null: 0.0%The Daily Caller: 0.3%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 7.9%null null: 13.7%The Daily Caller: 5.0%Politically Right Leaning Bias7.9%This article: 8.5%null null: 0.9%The Daily Caller: 1.3%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…8.5%

317 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers9.1%attributed speech288writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 3 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 10 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 45 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 25 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 27 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 28 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 26 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 25 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageMichael D. • 2 words • 0.0% coverageCato Institute • 27 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Cato Institute

100%flagged-word coverage
27 attributed words93% of attributed speech100% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Attempt to Sell a Product +100.0 ptsWriter: 0.0%Cato Institute: 100.0%100.0%Politically Right Leaning -8.7 ptsWriter: 8.7%Cato Institute: 0.0%0.0%Biased Writer Voice-6.6 ptsWriter: 6.6%Cato Institute: 0.0%0.0%Unattributed Quote-5.6 ptsWriter: 5.6%Cato Institute: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.