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TechnoratiMedia Quarantine of Single-Payer Continues
Fifteen years later, public health insurance still taboo
As a big healthcare policy debate looms once again in Washington, one thing remains as certain as it was in 1993: A single-payer plan that would provide government health insurance to everyone is off the media agenda.
CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen recently explained why healthcare "reform" is more possible now than it was under the Clinton administration (3/5/09):
Fifteen years ago you sometimes heard-actually you heard quite a bit-people saying: "Let's have a single-payer system like in Canada. The government is going to be the health insurer for everybody." You don't hear that as much as you used to. So more people are on the same page more than they once were. Cohen is right that there were many people in favor of single-payer 15 years ago; as Extra! pointed out back then (7-8/93), polls consistently found majorities supporting tax-financed national health insurance. And the numbers today? A January New York Times/ CBS poll (1/11-15/09) found 59 percent in favor of government-provided national health insurance. In other words, contrary to Cohen's claim, people are on pretty much the same page today as they were 15 years ago.
Her suggestion that it was those loud single-payer voices that stymied "reform" is likewise unfounded; as Extra! reported in 1993, corporate media were then solidly behind the Clinton administration's big insurer-friendly "managed competition" plan-single-payer was hardly discussed in the press. ("The debate over healthcare reform is over. Managed competition has won," the New York Times had already editorialized on October 10, 1992. "The outcome is as wondrous as it is surprising.")
And just as big media silenced single-payer back then, Cohen and her colleagues continue the tradition today. In the week leading up to Obama's March 5 healthcare summit, hundreds of stories in major newspapers and on NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and PBS's NewsHour mentioned healthcare reform, according to a recent FAIR study (3/6/09). But the idea of single-payer was mentioned only 18 times-and only five of those included the views of single-payer advocates.
On March 31, PBS's Frontline took an in-depth look at the U.S. healthcare system in Sick Around America, offering a prime opportunity to explore single-payer-or so thought the correspondent originally slated to do the show, T.R. Reid. In Frontline's 2008 special Sick Around the World, Reid examined healthcare systems in other developed countries, concluding that in nations where there is some private-sector role in health financing, one of the central lessons is that they "all impose limits"-including that insurance companies "can't make a profit on basic care." The show discussed single-payer alternatives, including Taiwan's healthcare system.
But in Sick Around America, the only alternative to the current U.S. healthcare system that was examined in any depth was Massachusetts' system of mandating that people buy insurance from for-profit health insurance companies. Reid, who was contracted to be the correspondent for the new documentary, quit over concerns that it contradicted his earlier research (Corp-orate Crime Reporter, 4/2/09): I said to them, mandating for-profit insurance is not the lesson from other countries in the world.... I said, I'm not going to be in a film that contradicts my previous film and my book. They said I had to be in the film because I was under contract. I insisted that I couldn't be. And we parted ways.
After FAIR criticized the film (4/7/09), Frontline pointed out that the show's narrator mentions that "other developed countries bar health insurance companies from making profits on basic care and cap their administrative costs." Of course, one brief mention in an hour-long show hardly constitutes a fair hearing.
As FAIR's study found, most mentions of single-payer tend to come from its critics, who bring it up in order to shoot it down-such as when Fox's Sean Hannity argued (2/19/09), "If we look at England, if we look at France, if we look at Canada, the single-payer, the worst thing we can do if we really care about kids is let the government run the healthcare system."
Single-payer did recently get a new proponent in corporate media with MSNBC's hiring of populist radio host Ed Schultz to fill its 6 p.m. slot. Since going on the air April 6, Schultz has questioned guests about single-payer multiple times, as when he asked why the Democrats won't put such a plan on the table (4/27/09): "The majority of the health providers, the majority of Americans want single-payer. You've got a president with a 69 percent approval rating. What are they waiting for?"
Schultz ought to ask the question not just of Democrats, but of his corporate media colleagues as well.
22 Comments so far
Show AllOf course, no one wants the Net to replace the heritage media environment we had, but to create an environment in which we CAN find information because the $$ has a less exclusive hand in dissemination.
This probably means subscription journalism or journalism funded by voluntary contribution. If we can maintain it by voluntary contribution, it reaches a lot more people. The difference is not just that it reaches people who cannot or will not pay for it. Being free also allows people to read who subscribe to something else, who have a different POV.
So, were CD exclusively subscription-based, unaffiliated or differently affiliated people -- say, high-school students whose parents listen to Limbaugh -- could not access it. It's not just the #'s; it's a way of not just preaching to the choir.
"A single-payer plan that would provide government health insurance to everyone is off the media agenda."
They know "who" they work for.....and it certainly isn't "We The People".
Maybe some of these alleged journalists will wake up when they lose their jobs, health insurance, pension plans, etc.. and have to work for slave wages, like many of us must do, just to pay for over-inflated grocery and energy bills.
If their agenda doesn't change, they will become history!
richest country on the planet 36th in education 37th in healthcare yeah we are dumb.
and we haven't hit bottom yet! scary isn't? no sense in appointing blame its all about
fixing this mess asap! 3rd party candidates or some of the good guys already there
forming a voting bloc to force change! dennis russ george bob are you listening?
The corporate media, working closely with corporte and the corporations government interests, wields enormous power to to black-out ("memory-hole" - Orwell) information on any cause promoting an corporate unfriendly viewopint - from healthcare to war to mountain top removal.
Thus, any kind of nonviolent cause can be quashed through information blackout before it can reach the anything close to the critical participation level needed to be effective. How many USAns knew that last Saturday was a national day of action for Single Payer? How would they know?
And no, the internet is NOT a substitute for mainstream broadcast or print news coverage. The websites promoting any particular cause or viewpoint are only going to be searched and found if the person already knows of (and is already sympathetic to) the cause or viewpoint! Thus, the internet turns into a micro-balkanied, soundproof echo-chamber of defused dissent.
The tactics of Gandhi and King and hundreds of smaller movements will never be efective again under this media regime. Everything from the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to the withdrawal from Vetnam, to the Surface Mine Act of 1977 (the dark "days of excess" as Obama calls them) were only passed because of popular activism reaching a critical mass due to media coverage. These movements would fail if started today. About as many USAns would have heard of Martin Luther King as have heard of, say, Donna Smith today.
Of course, less-than-peacful tactics won't work either. Such tactics DO break the media silence. But, absent any public knowlege of the cause, it is simple matter for the media to paint any kind of barricade or riot actions as those of isolated "anarchist" loonies. Genuinely violent police crackdowns - even kllings -can then proceed with little or no public sympathy.
Damned if we do and damned if we dont.
There was a time when the job of a journalist was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Those days are gone. There is a special place in hell for all corporate media jorrnalists.
Solutions to this situation, anyone?
The tactics of Gandhi and King and hundreds of smaller movements will never be efective again under this media regime. Everything from the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to the withdrawal from Vetnam, to the Surface Mine Act of 1977 (the dark "days of excess" as Obama calls them) were only passed because of popular activism reaching a critical mass due to media coverage. These movements would fail if started today. About as many USAns would have heard of Martin Luther King as have heard of, say, Donna Smith today.
Of course, less-than-peacful tactics won't work either. Such tactics DO break the media silence. But, absent any public knowlege of the cause, it is simple matter for the media to paint any kind of barricade or riot actions as those of isolated "anarchist" loonies. Genuinely violent police crackdowns - even kllings -can then proceed with little or no public sympathy.
EXCELLENT points, yunzer!
"And no, the internet is NOT a substitute for mainstream broadcast or print news coverage. The websites promoting any particular cause or viewpoint are only going to be searched and found if the person already knows of (and is already sympathetic to) the cause or viewpoint! "
Good point, and may I add...the US government may go further. We know they are sifting through the internet. We know the pentagon (at least) haw hired several dozen (at least) fake bloggers and commenters to propagandize. They may, if they already haven't, choke off some content as China does with the help of US telecom companies (you know, the ones that are "immune" to lawsuits brought against them, thanks to the Democrats/Republicans).
If your government doesn't have a problem with illegal wiretapping, suspension of due process rights and torture, do you really think they would pause at a little censorship?
The things you write may be true, but they are a separate issue. My point is that the internet is inherently not a substitute for real journalism in a democracy. Because serious socially-conscious journalism aggregates dissent, the internet diffuses it.
Let me argue the point, then. I disagree.
Journalism is a profession, devoted to serving readers/viewers/listeners with a fair account of happenings that affect their lives.
The internet is a delivery mechanism. like satelite tv it can deliver different content from which the subscriber can choose. One can watch only fox on tv just as one can go to huffington post on the web.
Newspapers, although low tech, can be approached the same way, I can for example, only go to the sports news, if I choose.
So to say that the internet, diffuses journalism is not correct. The diffusion started long before the internet, and then what would you propose? If we had but one newspaper, that would be concentrated, but would it better inform the public? And you would still have people heading straight for the funny pages.
Journalism in the US does suck, bigtime, you are right, but I'm not sure it is the fault of the internet. We have the www in all our democracies and don't seem to suffer the dumbed down baby formula you experience in America. Perhaps it is because you let a few mega-corporatons buy all the papers and fire most of the reporters?
You have badly misinterpreted what I wrote. I didn't say the decline of journalism was the fault of the internet. I wrote that the internet is not providing any kind of suitable alternate for corporate-sycophantic journalism.
Let me put it to you this way.
Reading about the war-criminality of Bush on obscure left (to most USAns) web sites like CD has NONE of the credibility among the general public that reading about the war-criminality of Nixon did when it was on the front page Washington Post - or coming right out of the mouth of Walter Cronkite on CBS news.
I know, I am old enough to remember those days.
Alternatively, reading about the March on Montgomery on the front page of the Washington Post or the TV screen, led to enormous public sympathy for the civil rights cause. But information on modern-day justice movement are nowhere to be seen on the mainstream media. One must visit obscure web sites like "50 Years is Enough" or ZNet to learn about the global economic justice/sovereignty movements. It is not surprising that the public treats such sources and the movements they promote, with skepticism.
Recall how for a brief few days, the attention and sympathy that 1999 Seattle protesters got following the flurry of national mainstream media coverage? The corporate media didn't repeat that mistake again.
And, as far as the profession of journalism, you have read "Manufacturing Consent" by Herman and Chomsky, right? And since when has journalism only become about covering things that affect the readers own lives? Sound like you are infected with the neoliberal-capitalist me-me-me syndrome.
Media = Merchants fo Chaos
We need high insurance costs on our employers so we can reduce wages. How are you going to compete globally with a high middle class standard of living? After we reduce wages then we will reduce insurance costs.
If government continues to fail us on this issue we will have to make health care unprofitable by organizing massive protests - not against Washington or a city - but, against the private tyrannies themselves.
The media has conspired against single-payer exactly as it conspired for war on Iraq in 2002-03. Whatever the actual facts are on any big issue, we can depend on corporate media to be there 24/7 contradicting every one of them and paving the way for corporate profits over the will and well-being of the people. Elizabeth Cohen is the Judith Miller of healthcare "reform." She and thousands like her in MSM will whore for big pharma, the insurance companies, Baucus, Pelosi and Obama, to keep single-payer as far from the discussion as possible forever.
I disagree about Ed, ( I like to call his show the RED show). I think he's honest and he's anything but a fake populist or progressive. I've watched his show now since it first aired and he's leading the charge out here on TV for a single payer option in the reform debate. It's all of the rest of the media that has put it way off limits it seems.
The reason single payer isn't metioned in the mainstream media is because the media is owned by the corporate fascist Wall Street banksters. The ganster banksters also own the Obama administration and are the authors of Obama's new and urgent "healthcare reform" that has recently been drafted by HMO's, big pharma and big business. This group of non medical Nazi's are creating a modern version of what Hitler drafted in 1939 when the rationing of healthcare to "lives not worthy to be lived" became the genesis of Hitlers genocide.
With a Dem president and Congress, one would hope that we might see a single payer system adopted. Instead, we will be forced to accept a Nazi rationing of healthcare "reform" which of course, will be sugarcoated by Obama and the media.
Truly makes me sick, but I don't have healthcare insurance so I can't go to a doctor!
O'Bamba is the plug installed by 70 million voters into the gun barrel. Now we're waiting for them to cock the gun and pull the trigger. But they seem to be on vacation in their new 2010 Range Rovers. They don't like violence anyway. They will accept another 15 years of sub-par healthcare while sampling each year's new model Range Rover. To the mountains! Wee!
"Single-payer did recently get a new proponent in corporate media with MSNBC's hiring of populist radio host Ed Schultz to fill its 6 p.m. slot. Since going on the air April 6, Schultz has questioned guests about single-payer multiple times, as when he asked why the Democrats won't put such a plan on the table (4/27/09): "The majority of the health providers, the majority of Americans want single-payer. You've got a president with a 69 percent approval rating. What are they waiting for?""
Ed Schultz was a DLC apologist all along. The only reason that North Dakota dude bothered to ask was to fake populism just like everyone else.
And let's just face it, the public isn't united on SP, it's easy for all of us to bitch and moan and shoot each other out on the forums, we count on whoopdee doo whoopdee dum "polls" to tell us what to think. Until every business goes bankrupt and unemployment is 50% and higher, single payer will remain a taboo just like pot. Sorry to sound anal today but these authors who complain about the media should instead turn them off and direct more readers to better alternative media sources. The more they complain about MSNBC and Faux Noise, the more viewers their channels will receive.
I have been listening to Ed Schultz's radio program, and televison show, and he is an OUTSTANDING advocate for single payer health care. If he is "faking" populism, he deserves 200 Academy Awards.
Schultz is sincere, passionate, articulate and outspoken on single payer, and he addresses this issue CONSTANTLY. Instead of trying to shoot down his efforts to get the truth about single payer out to his listeners and viewers, you should be criticizing the media whores who are blocking information on single payer.
Even with the news blockout, except for Ed Schultz's valiant attempts, 59% of Americans already WANT single payer.
There are now 6,000 bankruptcies each day, according to USA Today. And a new study on the cause of bankruptcies, reported by Reuters today, shows that medical bills cause more than 60% of bankruptcies, even in people with "insurance."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/
06/04/medical_bills_underlie_60_percent_of_us_bankruptcies_study/
Medical bills underlie 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies: study
Thu Jun 4, 2009 7:07am EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medical bills are involved in more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just six years, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.
"Using a conservative definition, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92 percent of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10 percent of pretax family income," the researchers wrote.
"Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations."
The researchers, whose work was paid for by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the share of bankruptcies that could be blamed on medical problems rose by 50 percent from 2001 to 2007.
"Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," Harvard's Dr. David Himmelstein, an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States, said in a statement.
From the same Reuters article:
"Nationally, a quarter of firms cancel coverage immediately when an employee suffers a disabling illness; another quarter do so within a year," the report reads.
Interesting. I listened to him back in 2004 and 2005 back when he sounded more like another DLCer. Perhaps he has really changed and would be willing to listen to him again for the first time. My apologies.
Rape is still rape if the victim is too young or incapacitated to give consent. America is in the later category, too dumbed down to notice the immoral penetration. Rape and denial of health care are both violent crimes that can and do kill their victims. America is a cruel, greedy culture, and I am thoroughly ashamed of it.
who's raping who, and when does no mean no?