Appearing on the conservative Fox News Channel, billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who owns the network, expressed his "surprise" that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld President Barack Obama's health reform law, saying it will be perceived as "a big victory for the president."
"They will all be doing high-fives at the moment in the White House," he told host Neal Cavuto. "But on the other hand, every poll showed it's not a popular bill. So, we will go into the election and fight over it there."
While it is true that most Americans don't like the thought of being forced to buy a product -- in this instance, the Republican proposal for a health insurance "mandate" that President Obama ultimately accepted -- it is not the case that Americans reject health reform entirely.
In fact, it's quite the opposite.
Polling conducted in Sept. 2010, after Congress approved the law, found that about four in 10 Americans think the Democrats didn't go far enough in extending health coverage -- meaning they outnumber Americans who want the government to take a hands-off approach to health care by about two to one.
Another poll conducted a month later found that just 39 percent favored the Republicans' plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, while 58 percent said that even more government intervention was needed.
It also doesn't help public opinion considering that Fox News, which features a wide slate of Republican opinion shows and even pays top-ranking Republicans to appear on the network, has been notoriously dishonest about the law, taking outright fabrications like "death panels" and holding them up for serious discussion, as if it's a thing that exists.
A survey conducted at the end of 2010 (PDF) found that Fox News viewers were so woefully misinformed about the law that 72 percent of those polled said they believed the Affordable Care Act would increase the deficit, even though it is projected to do the exact opposite. An additional 63 percent of Fox News viewers said they believed that President Obama was not born in the U.S., or that it was unclear. Overall, the University of Maryland found that people who get most of their news from Fox News are the most misinformed media consumers in the nation.
This video was broadcast by Fox News on Thursday, June 28, 2012, as snipped by Mediaite.
