The Times ran an article in today's paper reporting that governors want additional funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in order to meet their coverage targets. According to the article, CBO estimates that it would take another $13.4 billion over the years 2008-2013. I'm sure that this number is very informative to about 20 people reading the NYT. Is $13.4 billion over five years a lot of money? Almost no one except budget wonks have any idea. Maybe the NYT could have written that it would cost about 0.1 percent of projected spending over this five year period ,or about $9 per person per year. Alternatively, the NYT could have told readers that the annual cost is a bit less than the cost of 2 weeks of the Iraq war. Or, it could have told readers that the annual cost was equal to about 10 percent of excess profits earned by the pharmaceutical industry because Congress prohibited Medicare from negotiating prices when it designed the new prescription drug benefit. Any of these ways of describing the spending in dispute would have conveyed information to the vast majority of readers of the NYT. Instead, the NYT chose to print a number that is completely meaningless to almost anyone who will read it.
--Dean Baker
