Dylan Byers: Niall Ferguson Lies Yet Again

Outsourced to Dylan Byers:

Niall Ferguson's selective edit of the CBO report on Obama's Affordable Care Act: Ferguson decides to edit the CBO report to satisfy his own conclusions….

Ferguson:

Here’s the CBO again:

CBO’s cost estimate for the legislation noted that it will put into effect a number of policies that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time. The combination of those policies, prior law regarding payment rates for physicians’ services in Medicare, and other information has led CBO to project that the growth rate of Medicare spending (per beneficiary, adjusted for overall inflation) will drop from about 4 percent per year, which it has averaged for the past two decades, to about 2 percent per year on average for the next two decades. It is unclear whether such a reduction can be achieved…

Indeed, it is, which is why I wrote what I wrote.

Byers:

But Ferguson cut the CBO excerpt off mid-sentence and changed the meaning entirely. Here is how that last sentence in the excerpt actually reads:

It is unclear whether such a reduction can be achieved through greater efficiencies in the delivery of healthcare or will instead reduce access to care or the quality of care (relative to the situation under prior law.)

So contrary to what Ferguson leads readers to believe, the CBO report does not state that the reduction is "unclear." What is "unclear" is whether the reduction will come through greater efficiencies in healthcare delivery or reduced access to care.

So, one more time: The Oxford-trained, Harvard-employed, Newsweek contributor Niall Ferguson just edited the CBO report to change its meaning.

With all due lack of respect: What are you thinking?