( – promoted by buhdydharma )
The President gave a compelling prime time Press Conference last week mostly about Health Care Reform — the most pressing Issue of our time, and what was the lead story for the next several days?
The merits of Public Option competition?
The plight of 14,000 citizens losing their Health Insurance each day?
No, the lead story was the President’s take on the arrest of his friend — on the emotionally charged “wedge issue” of Racial Profiling. A worthy discussion, no doubt —
But what about the issues of Health Care Reform? What about that Debate?
Of course the Media has been failing to have a Real Health Care Debate for some time now …
ABC Censors Obama’s Longtime Doctor, Dr. Scheiner
as first report by Media Watchdog
(that’s Watch Dog ON THE Media itself: FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
The doctor who served as Obama’s personal physician for 22 years speaks out about how ABC disinvited him from their healthcare forum two days before the prime-time event where he was planning to ask about single-payer healthcare.
[…]
The insurance lobbies and many politicians may not want to talk about single-payer. But that makes it all the more important that the media do.Watch FAIR’s exclusive video interview with Dr. Scheiner
Link to previous clip
What could Dr. Scheiner, the President’s Doctor for 22 years, have to say, that’s so disturbing that the Media Editors decided to “cut it” (aka. Censor it) before it ever got aired?
Perhaps it was the Plain Talk about our broken Health Care System?
Perhaps it was the Plain Indictment of Private Insurers, as being the ones, NOW, standing in the Middle, between you, and Treatment your Doctor recommends?
Perhaps they just didn’t like the good Doctor’s Mustache? Who knows? (Do they even need a good reason, anymore?)
Whatever the reason — his views never made it into the National Discussion. … However, such Corporate Media Filtering should NOT stop his Views from being heard:
Obama’s Family Physician Dr. David Scheiner Prescribes Single-Payer for America
(interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! — clip listed on Micheal Moore’s youtube page)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Dr. David Scheiner: … [Time Mark: 4:42]
Insurance Companies repeatedly interfere with the Care of Patients. The opponents of Health Reform keep saying that if the Government gets into Medicine, ‘You won’t have a choice of your Doctor. You won’t have a choice of your Hospital. Your Care will be Restricted.’ I don’t know where they got [this] — Medicare if anything is TOO permissive. Medicare NEVER gets in my way! But [with] Insurance Companies, I have to use special Labs. I have to — I can use certain Hospitals for one person, but I can’t use them for another.
I’m repeated getting responses from the Insurance Company disallowing certain procedures, disallowing certain medications. The Insurance Company is ‘in the room’ every time I see a Patient. And somehow the Patients think they have free choice. Medicare gives them free choice. They will have their Choice of Doctor, they will have their Choice of Treatment. Within Private Insurance that will NOT be the case — it is an extraordinary waste of money.
And the Public — If I had a single point to make about ‘What is going Wrong with this Health Reform?’ — is that the Public is SO UNINFORMED! They think somehow that they get the best care in the world — we know by Health Statistics we’re 37th! Even people with good Health Insurance, don’t realize that the Health Care they get, is often NOT appropriate. Sometimes they get unnecessary Treatment. …
“The Insurance Company is ‘in the room’ every time I see a Patient.”
Funny, how we so rarely hear that Message on our National Media!
But WE will hear NO SHORTAGE of well-financed Messages like this from the Media Message Factory:
Messages railing against a “bogyman” that doesn’t even have a snowball’s chance of passing …
Canadian Straw Man
factcheck.org — July 17, 2009
More ads claim that Congress is pushing a Canadian-style health care bill.
Shona Holmes Ad — Against Nationalization of Health Care
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Summary
Two ads from related independent groups make claims about an overhaul of the health care system, saying Congress wants a government-run health care system:One ad claims that “Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the U.S.” But the health care bills moving through Congress don’t call for a single-payer system like Canada’s, and legislation that does support a purely government-run system is quietly dying in committee.
[…]
Analysis
We’ve written before about conservatives claiming that Congress, or Obama, or Washington, or Democrats in general want the U.S. to have a Canadian-style, government-run health care system. The truth of the matter is that the president has repeatedly said he doesn’t.
[…]
Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and one of the leaders in drafting legislation, has said bluntly: “single-payer is not going to get even to first base in Congress.” Yet, the Canada claims continue.
http://www.factcheck.org/polit…
In modern day Corporate America, it’s all about emotional Wedge Issues, and the politics of Distraction, and Misdirection. It’s NOT about the Facts!
The Fact-Checking gets left to dedicated “Citizen Patriots” with the will, and the desire for the Truth, but usually NOT the the Megaphone, to make those Facts heard, above the Spin Room’s emotional froth:
Video Fact Check: Patients United Now (by Media Matters)
MediaMatters’s Health Care page
Kudos to Media Matters! … If only our Corporate Media were so conscientious! If only they honored the memory of “Their Mentor” Walter Cronkite, with his solid, fact-based reporting “style”, for a change. … But alas those days, a but a fading memory of a bye-gone Era. … The Real Reporting, the Real Debate, if it is to be had these days — MUST be prompted by Citizen Patriot Fact-Checkers, and by citizen bloggers, ever searching for the Truth … bloggers ever exercising the last remnants of free speech.
I’ll close my Media Filtering diatribe, with this Fact-based report, which indicates the depth to which the Corporate Media will go to avoid honest discussion of real issues, facing real Americans every day:
The Poor Will Always Be With Us–Just Not on the TV News
a FAIR Study: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
By Neil deMause and Steve Rendall
According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, 37 million Americans-one in eight-lived below the federal poverty line in 2005, defined as an annual income of $19,971 for a family of four.
[…]
FAIR’s study examined the three weeknight network newscasts-ABC World News, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News–over a 38-month period (9/11/03-10/30/06). We considered every story mentioning the words “poverty,” “low income,” “homeless,” “welfare” or “food stamps,” compiling a list of all stories that dealt with issues of poverty in more than a passing manner.It was a short list. During the more than 3 years studied, there were just 58 stories about poverty on the three network newscasts, including just 191 quoted sources.
[…]
Driving home poverty’s low rank as a news priority is the fact that fewer nightly news segments were dedicated to it than to millionaire pop star Michael Jackson. During a study period that saw 58 stories about poverty, the three network programs dedicated 69 stories to Jackson’s legal woes.
Note: These stats were prior to Michael Jackson’s recent untimely Death.
The News obviously values Celebrity — the Hard Issues of America, not so much!
some rough “back of the envelope” calculations:
3 Networks x 3 years x 200 nites a year, x about 10 stories per nite = 1800 National News stories
58 of those stories were on Poverty
58/(1800 *100) = about 0.3% of the National Dialog
(Funny isn’t 0.3% about the same ratio of super-rich elites, who are really running things, behind the scenes, in this Country? That’s an Odd coincidence, or maybe not odd at all?)
Maybe there really are “Two Americas” — the one manufactured by the Media Agenda Setters, and the one that the Media chooses, everyday, to ignore?
And this is what that Two Americas looks like,
Our Two Americas looks like this:
The majority of us hanging by a string,
and the select few, pulling those strings!
— jamess
Post Script:
This is what a Solution to the Two-Americas problem, looks like:
Progressive Economics 101: A Living Wage
But when was the last time you heard the phrase: “A Living Wage” even mentioned on a National Media format?
I’d like to see the stats on that “censored” topic — That’ll be the Day!
9 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
tips for restoring “truth in reporting”
through out the opposition to health care reform….. picking at the flaws in the Canadian system and they exist while conveniently ignoring a few things…. the first is which a majority of Canadians are generally satisfied while desiring better delivery particularly in under served areas and they absolutely fear having it taken away from them.
The big bullshit I always hear is the story about “the wait times” for surgery. Oh I heard you wait such and such amount of time for hip replacement surgery. Yes… true. Because the entire system is built on the assumption of triage. You might wait a bit longer for the hip but you won’t wait for essentially surgery that involves a life threatening condition. Do some wealthy Canadians opt to go to the US for surgeries ect? Yes. And let them spend their money that way if they want to. Who cares. It does not translate into an indictment of the entire system.
Do doctors make as much money? No. But there aren’t any poor ones either.
It is likely somewhat true that in the US technology may in fact be developed slightly sooner. But if nobody can afford it how does it provide value? Conservatives might even be right when they say we have the best medical system in the world. Who knows? But it is a giant paper tiger if nobody can actually access it. We probably have the worst equality of access in the western world.
When I was a brand new nurse working at a small hospital in Texas that largely served indigent people I had a patient tell me I had to give her better “service” because she had insurance. I told her that I was going to give her the exact same care as I did to those who were uninsured and that landed me in my Manager’s office. I am not a customer service rep. I am a nurse. Anyway that is what I told my boss. They didn’t fire me.
Author
about the disgruntled Canadian Patient, Shona Holmes, was explained about a month ago:
Another Healthcare Lie, and the Lying Liar That’s Telling It.
by wbramh
are going to “fix” health care the same way they “fixed” the economy?
Happy Apocalyptic horses,very frisky.
…to the final bill. I am convinced it will end up as one more give-away to Big-Pharm-Ins-Cos, much the same as Medicare Part D, the Prescription drug plan of 2003.
The “D” stands for Disaster.
Well, I’m 76. I’ve had my life. If they short me out as they did on Medicare-D, I don’t really give a flying swordfish.
Death is nothing but a move to another location.