ESCANABA — Watching FOX NEWS is bad for your health and not watching TV is more informative than watching FOX.

Viewers in rural areas, like ours, watch FOX more than other sources of news and information. Rural areas voted for Mr. Trump. It is not a stretch to think that FOX misinformed its viewers who then voted for President Trump based on FOX’s misinformation. Those voters may be victims of bait and switch.

Mr. Trump targeted his voters in his budget and if the Affordable Care Act, ACA/ObamaCare, is repealed as proposed, the people most negatively effected live in rural areas. Many people working are insured because Medicaid was expanded under the ACA. The Ryan/Trump repeal will take away their Medicaid coverage.

Before the ACA was passed rural hospitals provided charitable care. The ACA helped relieve that burden. That help is threatened. Catholic Health Association president Sr. Carol Keehan told the National Catholic Reporter, “When you create a crisis in the insurance industry, it does impact the poor first, but let me tell you, it impacts everybody with employer-based insurance… So we need to be very, very clear in making sure people understand that. People are playing with fire when they do this.”

The Trump budget cuts funding for local community action agencies that provide Meals on Wheels for the elderly and disabled, including 500,000 veterans. The budget further cuts subsidized essential air transportation to the U.P. Not everyone travels by plane, but we depend upon people who use the air services to bring expertise into the area. For example, health care professionals and engineers. Air service is as important to the U.P. as the intracoastal waterway is the Gulf Coast.

FOX NEWS was a Trump trumpet helping him appeal to its viewers. A 2015 a study released by Bruce Bartlett, treasury official under President Bush I and domestic policy advisor to Ronald Reagan, indicated that FOX viewers subscribed to beliefs that were not based in fact. The study observed “It appears that right-wing bias, including inaccurate reporting, became commonplace on Fox…”

A 2012 study by Farleigh Dickinson University that concluded that FOX viewers scored lower on politics and current events then people who watched no news at all.

Recently FOX misled the president. At a February 2017 rally Mr. Trump said, “You look at what’s happening,” he told his supporters. “We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?” In context of the speech the president sounded as if he thought there had been a terrorist attack in Sweden the night before. There hadn’t been and the Swedish government was quick to correct the public record.

The president tweeted that his Sweden terrorist information came from a FOX program the night before he gave his speech.

Later Bill O’Reilly introduced a guest he claimed to be a Swedish defense and national security advisor. Mr. O’Reilly said that the “expert’s” views were based on “hard news facts.” When asked Swedish officials said, “We don’t know this guy.’ “We have never heard of him in the Swedish armed forces, and he cannot speak on our behalf.”

According to hard news reports Mr. O’Reilly’s “expert” had a nebulous history and was charged in 2014 with public drunkenness and obstruction of justice as well as one felony count of assaulting a police officer.

Mr. Trump promised to provide insurance for everybody. The Trump/Ryan plan will drop 24 million people from health care rolls. It will give large tax breaks to the top 1 percent.

Recently the president’s press officer, Sean Spicer, claimed that British intelligence agencies spied on President Trump during his campaign. The British said the claim was “utterly ridiculous.” The head of the NSA said it was “arrant nonsense.” Mr. Trump said it was FOX’s fault because it reported the item.

Just say “No” to FOX. Our republic does best with informed participants. Including Mr. Trump.

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Richard Clark practiced law for 41 years in Escanaba.