Covering the debate in Congress over whether a government-run health program should created under President Barack Obama’s health care plan, the Associated Press’ Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar asserts on September 25th:

The public option continues to enjoy broad support in opinion polls.

Alonso-Zaldivar then completely fails to actually cite any polling data to back up this claim. To better inform his readers, Alonso-Zaldivar ought to check out the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted Spetember 17-20 by Democrat Peter Hart and Republican Bill McInturff.

They asked 1,005 adults: “Would you favor or oppose creating a public health care plan administered by the federal … Continue Reading

The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen is attacking Erica Werner and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar of the AP for their July 15th and 16th stories placing a $1.5 trillion price tag on the House Democrat health care plan.

Benen claims they are off by $500 billion since the CBO put a “a roughly $1 trillion cost” on the bill. But it is Benen who has his numbers wrong. The $1.042 trillion number that Benen is probably referring to, is the “net impact of coverage specifications” on page 14 of the CBOs pdf. But that “net impact” to the deficit number … Continue Reading