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Policing the Debate on Health Reform
ABC's Diane Sawyer claimed (CNN, 6/22/09) the network's June 24 forum on President Barack Obama's healthcare plan would feature "questions from every single vantage point."
Yet, ignoring calls from FAIR (Action Alert, 6/22/09) and advocacy groups such as Health Care Now!, the special did not include a single question from an advocate of single-payer national health insurance—despite the fact that the single-payer option polls well with the public (New York Times/CBS, 1/11-15/09) and is seen by many experts as the best way of expanding coverage to the uninsured while also controlling costs.
In the wake of well-publicized flak ABC received from the Republican Party over the special, the Republicans' position that Obama's plan amounted to a "government takeover of healthcare" was reflected in the questions selected by ABC.
ABC's Charles Gibson asked Obama directly to respond to Republican criticism. Meanwhile, one of ABC's hand-selected questioners said he was concerned with "the big brother fear," asking, "How far is government going to go in reference to my personal life and healthcare treatments?" Another questioner, identified as an M.D., said he was "concerned" with "the government taking over healthcare."
The insurance industry's perspective was also well-represented in the forum, with ABC medical editor Timothy Johnson citing "critics" who say Obama's plan "would eventually put private insurers out of business." ABC also featured a question to Obama from the CEO of the major insurance company Aetna, as well as the head of the Lewin Group--which is owned by another major health insurance company, the United Healthcare Group.
(Four medical practitioners, the president of the American Medical Association, two family members of patients, a former government health official, two human resources managers and a small business owner were also selected by ABC to ask questions to the president.)
David Westin, president of ABC, had defended ABC's selection of guests for the forum, saying, "We will include a variety of perspectives coming from private individuals asking the president questions and taking issue with him, as they see fit." Just days before the forum, Sawyer stated on CNN (Reliable Sources, 6/22/09) that it was going to be "a room full of widely diverse ideas in which people who actually experience the reality of front-line healthcare are going to get a chance to pose their challenging questions to the president."
Yet the issue of single-payer was never raised by either the ABC interviewers or ABC's hand-selected guests, despite the fact that it is popular, and favored by 59 percent of physicians, according to recent peer-reviewed survey (Annals of Internal Medicine, 4/1/08). And despite the fact that even Obama's own doctor has criticized the government's plan in favor of a single-payer system.
In the entire ABC healthcare special, the single-payer option was only once mentioned, and dismissively, by Obama himself, in response to Republican charges that his healthcare proposal is a "Trojan horse" for "socialized medicine."
Yet, tellingly, for the corporate media's most influential media critic--Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz-– the main concern vis a vis the ABC forum was not the silencing of a popular reform proposal. Rather, it was the question of whether health insurance companies and other industry perspectives would be sufficiently represented in the forum.
In a segment on the ABC healthcare forum on CNN’s Reliable Sources, Kurtz stated to Sawyer:
You have the ultimate guest for this special, the president. Why not also include guests from the insurance industry, the hospital industry, the drug companies who also have a stake in this health care battle?
It would be a surprise to many Americans that they do not, in Kurtz's view, have a stake in healthcare reform.
But then again, corporate media's longstanding blackout on the single-payer option shows that corporate journalists have long seen the views of citizens as unimportant to the healthcare debate.
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21 Comments so far
Show AllIf Obama and the DINOCRATS don't hand us all over to the Health "Denying Care" Mafia I'll be shocked. Chances are though what we'll get will be great for the same thugs that are already raping us. My guess i sthat Obama's plan is to hand them even more $$ like he has the Pirates of Wall st. Then he'll declare it a new day for someone. Sure as hell not any of us.
The US mainstream media don't even discuss multi payer systems such as that in Germany which require those in the private selling basic health insurance to be (1) non profit organizations, (2) strictly regulated by the central government, and (3) not refuse coverage to anyone based on health condition.
See my blog at ahgoldberg.radioleft.com..
AD
Germany has had some flakey moments on the economy. Good thing they had a good blend in their healthcare system or things would have gotten worse.
As long as the American people are content to live in a perpetual state of self-imposed ignorance, believing the government and mass media are on their side, never questioning, with their brains turning to mush with reality TV and electronic toys, there is no hope.
To honestly believe we have a "two-party" system is folly. They are all cut from the same cloth, just changing the face that occupies the big chair every 8 years, without so much as a burp in the pursuit and power of corporate government.
We have what we allowed ourselves to have. It will be a long and difficult road, but the system must be changed to reflect a democracy, "of the people, by the people and for the people." We can start by learning what the Paul Wellstone brand of democracy is all about, and sow the seeds of that wisdom in the public domain, starting at the local level.
To be fair, the ignorance isn't entirely self-imposed. A lot of it is a by-product of the same system that you quite rightly point to as being at the root of the problem.
In particular, the popular confusion of capitalist "free enterprise" and its alleged benefits IN THE MARKETPLACE with financial dominance of the nation's ENTIRE POLITICAL SYSTEM didn't arise without a lot of help from the latter forces. Incessant inculcation can be a very powerful tool, even when its theme is so obviously counter-intuitive. The struggle against it will be a difficult uphill battle, even at the local level. But you're certainly right about needing to start there.
Sioux Rose
RV: Right on! And let's not forget that many of these networks make use of those who have Ph.D. backgrounds in psychology and have probably tested buzz words to get that Pavlovian response they so desire! George Lakoff elucidated the power held by frames, that is, how issues are framed. Minds are trapped by these verbal driftnets.
U.S. media & politics are like an expansion upon a grand Potemkin Village! It's unbelievablt that ABC shills can pretend that all the really diverse viewpoints are being debated when they leave out more than HALF of what the majority wants, and that's a majority that has, against all published odds, managed to see through the morass! A lot of this mass are likely disgruntled policy holders who realize that having insurance is not the same thing as getting necessary care!
Just as crowds gathered to say no to war, sent the man from Hope to DC because he SEEMED to say he would scale back the martial-state, and loudly protested AGAINST the bailouts to the banks... the levels politicians are prepared to go to in blatantly voting in favor of their special interests' interests, has become unbearable, a treason against THE people.
A normal society would have seen mass protests by now, but ours is NOT normal thanks to a media that deflects righteous anger towards the wrong (pre-selected safe) targets, added to the prolific prescribing of anti-depressants drugs (siphoning off the massive explosion of angst that otherwise would be expressed by our abused/ignored/lied to population), and TV, the mind-numbing last legal drug! More can be added to this list (why the apparent apathy), like tasers and living in the most armed land in the world, working exceptionally long hours to keep up with expenses, and food that fails to nourish.
A normal society wouldn't have the kind of protests in the first place. A normal society would quit trusting the "honor code" and not allow media scumbags and leaders to corrupt the public to begin with. We'd be vetting our candidates election after election. There were already protests in Washington against the war but so far none of them have worked. What makes you think street protests alone will do the trick? Otherwise, you make great points on those phony drug wars and the media.
Sioux Rose
ROBO: At this point I'm hoping for Divine intervention; however it can work through human channels as well as a variety of "natural" cycles. Thus the end of oil, actual state of the US economy, and frequency of disruptive climate events taken together could cause a fundamental change in direction. Keep in mind that this trifecta will also add to the growing angst in the land of the not exactly free, but broke(n). In other words, all signs point to "paradigm shift!"
Single payer, single payer. All I hear is single payer. Well, let me tell you it's not going to be single payer. -Nance Pillosi
This reminds me of the last multi-billion dollar corporate plunder in 2003. What was the problem then? "Our seniors can't afford their prescriptions." What was the legislative solution? A corporate giveaway costing over $600B that specifically forbid negotiating drug prices and drowned many of "our seniors" in the "donut hole" of exploitation.
What's the problem in 2009? People can't afford health care. Who is excluded? The people. Who's being served? The same blood suckers.
"Single payer, single payer. All I hear is single payer. Well, let me tell you it's not going to be single payer." -Nance Pillosi, 2009
"The public be damned" -- Wm. Vanderbilt, 1882
Welcome to Amerika.
This is one of those cases where conspiracy isn't a dirty word. THe exclusion is intentional, obviously, and primarily a result of the overwhelming ad revenue coming from pharma and insurance. Any managing partner of a for-profit "news" outlet is going to do the same thing, given that it would be unlikely to recoup lost revenue from industrial medicien in an economic downturn very easily. Don't believe me? Just sit through one hour of "news" programming and see who's footing the bills.
This was dead from the beginning. It was never in play, and the rest is theater. I'm sick of authors talking about political courage and representation and all of the other shopworn platitudes that have long since left the auditorium of reality.
Our system must be scrapped. Entirely. There is no "reform".
The sentiment is sound. It probably does need to be scrapped and rebuilt entirely from the ground up. Just don't throw out the baby with the bathwater this time around.
Direct democracy might be ideal, but representative democracy can work if the representation actually does reflect the will of its human constituents and not the singular motivation of paid corporate sponsors to maximize their own profits.
In either case, don't blame the fundamental concepts of a republican state and its democratic governance for the current distortions of both. You might, however, want to reconsider some of the "balance of power" aspects that currently resemble the absolute monarchy it was supposed to avoid. In fact, day-to-day parliamentary accountability of the chief executive might actually have a few moderating benefits to recommend its (re-)adoption in principle, especially considering the emergence of so-called "unitary executive" theories.
I'm not sure what one does about the judicial branch, except that its appointment by the other branches of the political machine leaves a lot to be desired and, in consequence, tends to support legal absurdities like "corporate personhood" and "money as speech."
Representation to some extent is going to be inherent in large human communities, even ones that aren't democratic. The framers did a superb job given the painful limits of historical example to work with. Well, we don't have that excuse now.
I think we have to be blunt about what has failed and what has not, although that ledger is fairly imbalanced. It's likely that we need to go in a direction that is only now being fleshed out experimentally, but the hard part is cultivating a shared general vision.
Nevertheless, my own vision is far more radical. But there's a lot of room for cooperation and a solid compromise alternative could be worked out in my view.
We'll see.
So "people" fear their government providing health care, while cheering on the same government when it kills people abroad.
That in essence is the psychotic derangement, and perhaps yes, great evil, that has overtaken our political class.
The failure of the US establishment to seriously consider single payer shows how sick our society has become.
Unlike other issues, like global warming or fossil-fuel dependence, there's an obvious solution to the failure of the US health care system. Every other wealthy country in the world has a system that covers all its citizens.
Solving the health care problem isn't rocket science, but it does require a commitment to the public good that our leaders lack. Just as they fail to see that cutting jobs and wages will also destroy the economy, that can't see that enriching the medico-industrial complex at the expense of the health and well-being of the citizenry will destroy that very system.
The failure to consider single payer even though it has majority support shows that the US is not a democracy but a plutocracy -- a government of, by, and for the rich. And it looks like the greed of the rich is terminal.
dfairley, greed is always terminal. When the host dies, the parasite dies with it. It's just a matter of time.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
"When the host dies, the parasite dies with it. It's just a matter of time."
Don't count on it. If the parasite finds a better host, it'll hop right on over. Better to kill it than wait like I always do. Wouldn't you agree?
Did anyone else catch Charles Gibson's question to Obama wherein he said....
"Do we really want to insure the 45 million uninsured? It's hard for us to get a Dr's app't RIGHT NOW!!!"
WHAT AN ARROGANT SONOFABITCH!!!
He's saying.....
THEY'RE JUST PEASANTS....LET THEM DIE ! ! ! !"
TALK ABOUT CLASS WARFARE ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
No I didn't see it and I'm glad I didn't because that really chaps me. Hey, Charlie, after the jobless recovery takes the insurance away from a few more million, you ought to be able to get an appointment right away.
The man is too stupid to live.
Doesn't he realize that if all the people shuffling paper and denying care in the private health insurance industry were re-trained and put in the front lines as health care PROVIDERS, that the shortage he cites (real or imagined) would be taken care of? That complaint is a new one on me ... I thought the waits were in Canada!! This is typical of the straw men and phony agruments that have characterized this debate.
Class warfare indeed, but not as it's usually portrayed in the media. It's the commercial and tecnological elite who have declared the war, and it's time for the middle class to fight back.
Boycott, resist, drop out if you can. Practice civil disobedience. They're going to keep providing the challenges until we do.
Hey, liberalbias---
When Charles Gibson asked Obama,
"Do we really want to insure the 45 million uninsured? It's hard for us to get a Dr's app't RIGHT NOW!!!" what was Obama's reply (if any)?
As of June 12, when my new HDTV and my new indoor amplified HDTV antenna ceased receiving any stations, I quit watching TV. It all seemed like re-runs anyway, including the "news."
Meanwhile, to the extent that Medicare represents the closest thing to "single-payer" (with the VA perhaps being better) that our gubment can come up with, they have apparently corrupted that, too. I started receiving Medicare Part A (hospital) last June, and now I am hearing that the up-front charge can be quite high. Part B (doctor) kicks in for me next month and I am informed that the premium is $96.40 a month---more than 10 percent of my SS check. If there is a Part C I have no idea what it is, but I have heard of the dreaded donut hole in Part D. Evidently OUR government is intent on assuring that single-payer never works in the USA.
I am among the fortunate so far, and have not seen a doctor in at least a dozen years, but fear of becoming ill at my age is constantly on my mind, and when I think about those who are ill in this country and the added headaches they face, a huge part of me ceases being a Pacifist. Another part of me is saying, "if I must pay nearly $1,200 a year in Part B premiums, then sure as hell I intend to see a doctor whether I need to or not!"
Damn, just thinking about it...I need a drink.
As for Charles Gibson, he needs to do time digging up the tundra in Siberia, naked and without shoes. So sincere, so "authentic." Like that multimillionaire can't get a doctor's appointment... Hell, he probably has one on retainer, like Michael Jackson!
One more point: There are many employers, like mine, who hire people over 65, part time like me, BECAUSE our health insurer is Medicare or some other retirement benefit they do not have to pay for. Sorry: second point: At my part-time job my largest payroll deduction is for Social Security, significantly larger than ALL OTHER DEDUCTIONS COMBINED. I'm subsidizing my own non-retirement! But really, at my age I have better things to do...
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