How HHS Became a Government Propaganda Machine

Dennis Smith / November 30, 2009

In an arrogant and somewhat bizarre display of disinformation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is feeding local news sources with “new reports” about health insurance “reform.”

Local stories have started appearing, citing new reports from HHS. A story out of northwest Indiana, for example, cites “… a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.” Given the Senate vote last Saturday, HHS clearly wants to create the impression that good news is just around the corner as a result of the legislation itself.

The credibility problem for HHS is that “the reports” are not based on the actual legislation. “The reports” consist of recycled data released last May before legislation was even introduced and subsequently released in a study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute, The Cost of Failure to Enact Health Reform: Implications for States. HHS has merely extracted data provided by Urban for each state and repackaged it for local consumption. (more…)