MSNBC Criticizes Fox News For Airing Dishonest Obamacare Enrollment Chart

After Fox News aired a deceptive chart suggesting that the Obama administration would fall far short of the initial Obamacare enrollment estimate of 7 million, MSNBC criticized the network for its misrepresentation of the enrollment numbers.

During the March 31 edition of MSNBC's PoliticsNation, Al Sharpton denounced Fox for airing the misleading chart, asking, “Since when is 6 million less than half of 7 million?”:

SHARPTON: This weekend, Fox News showed this dramatically skewed chart to suggest that the law would come up far short of its initial estimate of 7 million enrollees. Since when is 6 million less than half of 7 million? Anyone? They distort. You decide. Here is what the chart should look like according to reality.

Politicsnation chart

Later on All In with Chris Hayes, guest host Steve Kornacki also spoke of the misleading graphic aired by Fox News. Kornacki noted that the graphic attempted to “portray 6 million enrollees as actually only about a third” of the initial CBO estimate of 7 million enrollees:

KORNACKI: And Fox News resorted to making graphics that try to portray 6 million enrollees as actually only about a third of the enrollment goal of 7 million. Check that out.

Steve Benen, producer of The Rachel Maddow Show, also weighed in on the misleading chart for the Maddow Blog. In the post, Benen calls the graphic “ridiculous” and notes that Fox may have “manipulated the axes” because the numbers were not on its side:

Fox clearly manipulated the axes, to a comical degree, in the hopes of making some kind of ideological point.

[...]

But let's not miss the forest for the trees: Fox News felt the need to put that ridiculous chart on the air because reality is starting to look pretty good for the Affordable Care Act. If the facts were on ACA opponents' side, there wouldn't have been any need to manipulate the axes in the first place.

Below is the chart aired on America's Newsroom on March 31:

Fox News chart