Adam Nagourney finds a way

I read Nagourney's article on how passage of the health care bill is politically bad for Republicans with interest. It is remarkable that read it at all. I wanted to see if he could find ballance in spite of the unusually pernicious liberal bias of the facts.

He did, after quoting Republicans denouncing the bill writing

Yet there are elements of the bill, particularly in regulating insurers, that could well prove broadly popular, and it could be years before anyone knows whether the legislation will have big effects on health care quality and the nation’s fiscal condition.

The first statement is an extreme understatement. Regulating insurers is already broadly popular as is expanding medicaid, subsidies for people moderate incomea and the (not passed yet) surtax on the wealthy. This has happened it is not something that could well be.

Much more importantly there is the Criticism ... Yet ... effect on quality and the deficit will only be known years from now. The word yet definitely asserts that the fact that these effects won't be observed soon is bad for Republicans, that is the effects will be bad (I don't know if he counts the quality of health care for the currently uninsured as part of the overall quality of health care).

I think a reality based description is "Republicans should be damaged by their false claims about the bill, yet it could be years before anyone knows whether the legislation will have big *beneficial* effects on health care quality and the nation’s fiscal condition as non partisan experts predict." I would not suggest that Nagourney write that either in a news article.

A neutral statement about how we won't know who is right for years would be OK. The assertion that it is bad for Republicans that we won't know is the assertion that they are right on the consequences of the policy. It is inappropriate to make such a claim in a news article and, besides, since Nagurney doesn't know or care about policy, he's not the one who should be allowed by News editors to express an opinion.