Wonderland or Not

Health care bothers me. To be pre­cise, the cove­rage of health care by the media bothers me, con­se­quently I spend a lot of time online stum­bling health care posts. Most of the posts are opi­nion pie­ces, but unfor­tu­na­tely that is all I have because there is little real health care repor­ting, and I think it’ s something peo­ple need to think about.

The media’s excuse is that peo­ple don’t watch sto­ries on health care, and there is little in the way of com­pen­sa­tion for such repor­ting. By that FOX was right to eschew Obama’s health care press con­fe­rence, they won the ratings in that time frame, but from the stand­point of being a news orga­ni­za­tion with some res­pon­si­bi­lity to put sig­ni­fi­cant con­tent in front of the public, they lost.

I loathe that Con­gress works in such a way that if some kind of plan on health care isn’t rushed through this year it’s bound to be unad­dres­sed for some time. There is something wrong with a sys­tem that works that way, espe­cially when the issue is so com­pli­ca­ted that I doubt most of Con­gress unders­tand anything but the poli­ti­cal rami­fi­ca­tions of it. I don’t have con­fi­dence in this pro­cess, or the peo­ple in charge of it, and I’d like to see some real inves­ti­ga­tive repor­ting on the health care issue.

Much of what I read/watch from major news ser­vi­ces is nothing more than reports on the poli­ti­cal impli­ca­tions of pas­sing, or not pas­sing, a health care bill. I want to see real life repor­ting on how sys­tems in other coun­tries work, not vague sta­tis­ti­cal com­pa­ra­ti­ves. What I see is “repor­ters” making their point with any of the various points you can make with sta­tis­tics, depen­ding on which ones you choose for your par­ti­cu­lar agenda. As I’ve said here before, facts of omis­sion are a grea­ter part of our news these days, and with health care it is even more so because it is a com­pli­ca­ted issue, pro­bably takes time to inves­ti­gate, might even take time and con­cen­tra­tion to unders­tand, and brings little in mone­tary rewards. But the public needs to hear some good repor­ting on this issue.

In a note to Trudy Lie­ber­man (direc­tor of the health and medi­cine repor­ting pro­gram at CUNY’s Gra­duate School of Jour­na­lism who covers health reform for the Colum­bia Jour­na­lism Review’s cjr.org, and regu­lar con­tri­bu­tor to The Nation), Sarah Var­ney, one of the few really decent health care/health repor­ters out of LA (I lump her with Kelley Weiss, Joe Barr and Paul Con­ley at Capi­tal Public Radio), who was inside Canada wor­king on a report about their sys­tem, said.…

“I would say as an Ame­ri­can health repor­ter there is a lot of pres­sure inside news rooms to give the Cana­dian horror sto­ries equal foo­ting with what my repor­ting actually found — -which was that the Cana­dian sys­tem is by-and-large a func­tio­ning sys­tem that covers ever­yone for half the cost with envia­ble health outcomes”

Accor­ding to cjr.org’s Health Reform Too Boring for Broadcast?

“Var­ney told a com­pe­lling and inte­res­ting story that directly con­tra­dicts the ads now run­ning on U.S. tele­vi­sion. She also con­duc­ted a round table con­ver­sa­tion with some of the best Cana­dian health experts, inc­lu­ding lea­ding health eco­no­mists Robert Evans and Morris Barer. They explai­ned that their sys­tem is not socia­li­zed medi­cine — doc­tors don’t work for the state; they are inde­pen­dent and run their own prac­ti­ces. What is socia­li­zed is the insu­rance pool— every Cana­dian is in it— which powers the country’s lower cost, not-for-profit health insu­rance system.”

Trudy Lieberman’s Health Care pie­ces at at cjr.org

At the Nation

We need real health care repor­ting, whether we want it or not, and it is all but non-existent.

If you have a favo­rite repor­ter who is currently cove­ring health care, I mean really cove­ring it, let me know.

Peace