Yes, Actually, Obamacare Is the Biggest Tax Increase in History

Just because a headline or an idea is repeated over and over again doesn’t make it true.

No sooner had Chief Justice Roberts issued his ruling that ObamaCare’s individual mandate to purchase health insurance ObamaCare was a tax than the law’s defenders in the press were racing to rebut the idea that the law, overall, is the largest tax increase in American history.
“No, ObamaCare Isn’t the Biggest Tax Increase in History,” was the headline over Kevin Drum’s piece in Mother Jones, published July 1.
“No, ‘Obamacare’ isn’t ‘the largest tax increase in the history of the world’ (in one chart)” was the headline over a July 2 postby the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, which hyperlinked back to Kevin Drum.
Bloomberg Businessweek’s Elizabeth Dwoskin weighed in on July 3. Her article was headlined, “Why ObamaCare’s Tax Increase Isn’t the Biggest Ever,” and it linked back to Ezra Klein.
On July 5, The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn, a college pal of mine, joined the fray with an article whose web headline is “The Affordable Care Act Is Not The Biggest Tax Hike.” He linked back to both Ezra Klein and Kevin Drum.
Critics would call this herd journalism, or pack journalism, or groupthink. Defenders would say it is just giving credit where credit is due, and that it happens routinely among right-leaning journalists as well as among left-leaning ones. The important thing for a reader to remember, though, is just because a headline or an idea is repeated over and over again doesn’t make it true.

Read more: http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/09/yes-actually-obamacare-is-the-biggest-ta