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Medicare

• October 8 -- "Bush Pushes Limits on the Facts" on Trail
Only Republicans push the limits of truth, according to Adam Nagourney and Richard Stevenson's "In His New Attacks, Bush Pushes Limits on the Facts," featuring a cameo by liberal bogeyman Lee Atwater.

• September 17 -- Bad Labeling Habits on the Trail
Richard Stevenson and Robin Toner indulge in some unhealthy labeling bias while on the campaign trail with Bush.

• August 11 -- Halbfinger Omits the Union Label
Reporting on campaign courting of the elderly, David Halbfinger spreads around more Kerry optimism and leaves out the AFL-CIO origins of a "three-year-old political organization that claims three million members" that's endorsing Kerry.

• May 13 -- Keeping It In the Liberal Family
There's a revealing editor's note on Thursday's corrections page regarding John Leland's Wednesday article, "73 Options for Medicare Plan Fuel Chaos, Not Prescriptions."

• January 6 -- The "Conservative" Medicare Drug Bill?
Robert Pear surveys the political landscape around the Medicare drug bill and sees no liberals: "The law was written mainly by conservatives and centrists."

• December 8 -- Gingrich as Anti-Medicare Grinch
Deborah Solomon grills the chief executive of AARP for consorting with conservative Newt Gingrich, who Solomon claims "wants to destroy Medicare."

• December 3 -- Socialized Medicine as "Social Justice"
Judy Foreman swathes a doctor's radical plea for socialized medicine under the gauzy guise of do-goodism, writing: "Dr. Woolhandler's commitment to social justice began in her childhood in Shreveport, La....Her father hired black women to take care of his four daughters, who sometimes visited these women in their shacks on roads the city never paved. That injustice was not lost on the Woolhandler girls."

• November 20 -- Still No Liberals in the Medicare Drug Debate
How does one quote Rep. Charles Rangel and Sen. Ted Kennedy in a Medicare story without using the word "liberal?" Ask Robert Pear and Robin Toner.

• November 13 -- Pear Continues Heavy Lifting On Labeling Bias
For months, Robert Pear has been writing the same Sisyphean story on the eternally embattled Medicare drug benefit bill, pitting "conservative" Republicans against plain old "Democrats" like…Sen. Ted Kennedy?

• October 21 -- Bush Jr. -- No Senior Appeal?
Robin Toner squeezes data out of an old poll to show "Bush's Popularity With Older Voters Is Seen As Slipping"--and lets us know who the bad guys are in the Medicare debate.

• September 18 -- Robert Pear Overdoses On “Conservatives”
Robert Pear’s story on drug subsidies for seniors overdoses on the “conservative” label, employing the term seven times in a 750-word story. Meanwhile, ultraliberal Sen. Ted Kennedy is again merely a “Democrat of Massachusetts.”

• July 21 -- Still No Liberal Labeling In Drug Coverage
A front-page story by Robert Pear on the tough road ahead for a Medicare drug bill calls the liberal group Families USA, which favors Canadian-style socialized medicine, a “consumer group.” Meanwhile, on the other side, “Conservatives agree that the Senate subsidies are generous -- too generous, they say.”

• July 17 -- Tax Cuts Cause Deficits, But Medicare Spending Doesn’t?
David Rosenbaum’s front-page story is headlined: “White House Sees A $455 Billion Gap In The ’03 Budget -- Would Be Biggest U.S. Deficit -- Democrats Point to Tax Cuts.” Why not “Conservatives Point to Medicare Drug Spending?”

• July 15 -- Still Looking for the Liberal Label
Robin Toner and Robert Pear went label-crazy on conservatives in their story on Medicare coverage of prescription drugs, using the “conservative” label six times while avoiding “liberal” entirely. This in a story featuring Sen. Ted Kennedy.

• June 26 -- Sucking Up To Seniors: The Times on Drugs
Sheryl Gay Stolberg talks to some feisty Nashville retirees who think the government isn’t generous enough on Medicare drug coverage: “Mrs. Fox's opinion, passionate though it may be, will not become reality for her and countless other elderly people who have spent years waiting for a Medicare prescription drug benefit.”

• June 24 -- “Democrat of Massachusetts,” Part 2
Tuesday’s Times reverts to old habits. Robin Toner and Robert Pear’s story on the Medicare drug bill contains 10 “conservative” versus one “liberal” label, and again terms ultra-liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy simply as a “Democrat of Massachusetts.”

• June 3 -- Bad Medicine At The Times
Times critics are “flooding the zone” regarding the paper’s slanted coverage of the pharmaceutical industry, with one suggesting an Augusta National-style crusade in the works against drug companies.

• June 2 -- Sen. Grassley’s Suspiciously Good Press
On the heels of a Times story in which Sen. Grassley promises to propose legislation to make Bush’s tax cut more palatable to the Times, the paper issues a favorable profile of…Sen. Grassley.