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https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs\">commentary\" by McCaughey. McCaughey claimed that under provisions in the economic recovery bill passed by House Democrats, \"[o]ne new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and 'guide' your doctor's decisions.\" The Limbaugh-promoted falsehood quickly popped up on the Drudge Report as well as in segments on Fox News, where Wall Street Journal senior economics writer Stephen Moore credited Limbaugh for bringing it to his attention. By February 10, McCaughey was invited on both CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight and Fox News' Glenn Beck to peddle false claims about the bill. Limbaugh even took credit for spreading the story, saying \"Betsy McCaughey writing at Bloomberg, I found it. I detailed it for you, and now it's all over mainstream media. Well, it's -- it headlined Drudge for a while last night and today. Fox News is talking about it.\" Media Matters recentlydocumented how Limbaugh's misrepresentations about the economic recovery package are promoted concurrently with Republicans in Congress, Sean Hannity, and other conservative media figures. BACKGROUND Limbaugh repeats health IT falsehood from Bloomberg \"commentary\" on House recovery bill https://mediamatters.org/items/200902100001 Rush Limbaugh repeated a falsehood in a Bloomberg \"commentary\" by Betsy McCaughey that claimed that under a provision in the House-passed economic recovery bill, \"[o]ne new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and 'guide' your doctor's decisions.\" In fact, the provisions McCaughey referenced address establishing an electronic records system such that doctors would have information about their patients \"to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care.\" Echo chamber: Bloomberg \"commentary\" health IT falsehood goes from Limbaugh to WSJ's Moore and Fox, back to Limbaugh https://mediamatters.org/items/200902100031 The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore and Fox News anchors Bill Hemmer and Megyn Kelly promoted the falsehood -- which first appeared in a Bloomberg \"commentary\" by Betsy McCaughey and was subsequently promoted by Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge -- that the economic recovery bill includes a provision that would, in Moore's words, \"hav[e] the government essentially dictate treatments.\" Limbaugh later took credit for spreading this story. Dobbs, Beck allow McCaughey to advance health IT falsehood https://mediamatters.org/items/200902110012 On Lou Dobbs Tonight and Glenn Beck, Dobbs and Beck allowed Betsy McCaughey to advance the false claim that provisions in the economic recovery act would permit the government to control health care. In fact, the provisions she cited address establishing an electronic records system in part for the purpose of \"reduc[ing] health care costs resulting from inefficiency, medical errors, inappropriate care, duplicative care, and incomplete information.\" It does not say that the federal government will determine what constitutes \"unnecessary care.\"","author":{"@type":"Person","description":"Newswire Editor is a Common Dreams staff position.","identifier":"25413159","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://www.commondreams.org/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8zMjg5OTM0MS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTc4ODc3OTc4NH0.Kro-XRoA7MB_ddUbc_2x6KjtfCnnkFR_VUghmVRfeoE/image.png?width=210"},"name":"newswireeditor","url":"https://www.commondreams.org/author/newswireeditor"},"dateModified":"2022-12-21T22:50:42Z","datePublished":"2009-02-12T17:21:23Z","description":"Talk radio host spearheads rapid spread of health IT falsehood","headline":"Rush's Voice Leads Conservative Echo Chamber","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","height":"600","representativeOfPage":"True","url":"","width":"1200"},"isAccessibleForFree":"True","mainEntityOfPage":"https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/02/12/rushs-voice-leads-conservative-echo-chamber","publisher":{"@id":"https://www.commondreams.org/","@type":"Organization","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","height":"511","url":"https://assets.rbl.ms/32373543/origin.png","width":"1501"},"name":"Common Dreams","sameAs":["https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Dreams","https://www.facebook.com/commondreams.org","https://twitter.com/commondreams"],"url":"https://www.commondreams.org/"},"speakable":{"@type":"SpeakableSpecification","cssSelector":["h1",".widget__subheadline",".social-author",".body-description"]}},{"@id":"https://www.commondreams.org/","@type":"Organization","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","addressCountry":"USA","addressLocality":"Portland","addressRegion":"Maine","postalCode":"04112","streetAddress":"PO Box 443"},"alternateName":"CommonDreams.org","contactPoint":{"@type":"ContactPoint","availableLanguage":"English","email":"info@commondreams.org","telephone":"+1-207-775-0488","url":"https://www.commondreams.org"},"ethicsPolicy":"https://www.commondreams.org/ethics-policy","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","height":"511","representativeOfPage":"True","url":"https://assets.rbl.ms/32373543/origin.png","width":"1501"},"name":"Common Dreams","nonprofitStatus":"Nonprofit501c3","publishingPrinciples":"https://www.commondreams.org/publishing-principles","sameAs":["https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Dreams","https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0010146/","https://www.facebook.com/commondreams.org","https://twitter.com/commondreams","https://www.instagram.com/commondreams/"],"telephone":"207-775-0488","url":"https://www.commondreams.org/"}]}
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Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.