American Media damaging America?
Health Care. So it seems like every one has put Mr Obama’s whole presidency down to this one issue. If he fails to pass a bill before his first term, he’s a failure. If he passes a bill without the public option, he’s a failure. If he passes a bill with the public option but gets no republican support, he’s a partisan failure who has failed to deliver on his pledge of being a bipartisan president.
Obama at this stage looks to be in a no win situation.
As an outsider to the American discussion on health care, I am wondering whether the American citizens – real American citizens, not the ones you see on Fox, MSNBC or are highlighted in partisan leaning polls feel about how their country is discussing this major country changing issue.
How do they feel about their leaders, on both sides of the isle, when they distort case studies, facts and figures to benefit their political gains? It’s just politics right? It’s a blood sport. It’s not like the outcome of this discussion is going to impact millions of people?
So the question I begin to ask myself is whether this healthcare debate is not just a black mark on Obama’s presidency, but a black mark on the country it self?
I don’t remember ever hearing about protestors taking automated live weapons to a Bush or Clinton Town-Hall. I can remember both Clinton and Bush being on the receiving end of some vile hate speech but the past seven months has seen hate speech elevated to something different. When is enough going to be enough?
Only seven months ago America was celebrating its first ever black president and now the country is supposedly worried about where this black man is taking them?
I have a sneaky suspicion that this is not the view of the average American. I have a suspicion that the moderate Republican/Democrat is worried about the fine details of Obama-Care and (rightly) worried about the country’s finances but they don’t believe that Obama is trying to achieve, as Glen Beck put it, back door reparations.
I hate to buy into a cliché, but the media has degraded this debate into something unseemly, Into something unbefitting of the well crafted American image seen and revered across the world.
18 Responses to “American Media damaging America?”
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009…
“In my examination of roughly 80 A-section stories on health-care reform since July 1, all but about a dozen focused on political maneuvering or protests. The Pew Foundation’s Project for Excellence in Journalism had a similar finding. Its recent month-long review of Post front pages found 72 percent of health-care stories were about politics, process or protests. [...]
It’s not for lack of interest. About 45 percent of Americans surveyed by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press recently said they have been following the health-care story more closely than any other.
But nearly half of those surveyed this month in a nationwide poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation said they are “confused” about reform plans.”
They've all gone insane. The media considers the protests themselves to be a problem for Obama, without even bothering to check if the rationales of the protesters make any sense. The tantrums and the unending blather about how Obama needs to care about the tantrums are apparently reasons unto themselves. The TV media is now nothing but a product, as whimsically attached to marketing principles and neuroses as any fizzy drink label – and apparently what the viewers desire is a constant mirror to their incredibly shallow and perspective-devoid antics.
Don't get me started on WaPo, WSJ or NYT.
Oh, and if anyone thinks that blogs can salvage the situation – have a gander at memeorandum and then tell me – with a straight face – that more than a third of the blogs featured there retain vestiges of sanity.
“automated live weapons”–
What’s that? You must mean “automatic live weapons”. Which they did not take to TH meetings or they would have been thrown to the ground, handcuffed, arrested and prosecuted in Federal Court with extreme prejudice.
They, meaning wing-nut jackasses, took Semi-Automatic weapons to TH meetings. I for one have written my congressman and senators asking for laws joining thousands of ordinances and laws that currently ban firearms from as far as possible from TH meetings or any other public political event except by law enforcement. Even that, I would feel much better with only Federal law enforcement be allowed armed at these events.
I think part of the fear created by the Obama Administraiton is from the hidden or non-public agenda. The staffers in the Obama Administraiton really want single payer, government controlled healthcare. They just do not believe that they can sell it. So they propose a tax payer subsidized public option so that they can back door the single payer plan. And no matter what they say in public, there are still all of the progressives papers, bloggers, and panel discussions that are quiet open about the desire for the public option.
Unless the Obama Administration can find away to assure Americans that all those discussions at dailuykos or moveon.org do not reflect how they really feel or what they really want. Also, the MSM seems to take the Obama Administration at face value when they do not warrant it.
And last, President Obama may not be interested in reparations but members of his staff like Valerie Jarret really love the idea of reparations and special rights for blacks. As long as the Obama Administraiton has Chicago politicians who supported reparation then one is allowed to be suspect.
From my area (conservative compared to much of the nation, but heavily Democratic), the main concern is the massive spending increases and power grabs. Our anger was to be expected when Bush was doing his torture and internal spying. Ditto for his chicken-little bank bailouts (which was especially upsetting when both presidential candidates backed the bills). But we were, well, hoping for a time of healing and restraint with the change of power. I'm afraid that the Democratic spending spree is going to split the party like the Republican spending spree killed their party.
Like the health care system we have?
Perhaps you'll have some nagging questions after reading Nicholas Kristof''s Op-Ed today in the NYT:
Some excerpts:
Critics fret that health care reform would undermine American family values, not least by convening somber death panels to wheel away Grandma as if she were Old Yeller.
But peel away the emotions and fearmongering, and in fact it is the existing system that unnecessarily takes lives and breaks apart families.
.
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A study reported in The American Journal of Medicine this month found that 62 percent of American bankruptcies are linked to medical bills. These medical bankruptcies had increased nearly 50 percent in just six years. Astonishingly, 78 percent of these people actually had health insurance, but the gaps and inadequacies left them unprotected when they were hit by devastating bills.
.
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The existing system doesn’t just break up families, it also costs lives. A 2004 study by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, found that lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths a year. That’s one person slipping through the cracks and dying every half an hour.
In short, it’s a good bet that our existing dysfunctional health system knocks off far more people than an army of “death panels” could — even if they existed, worked 24/7 and got around in a fleet of black helicopters.
So, for those of you inclined to believe the worst about President Obama, think it through. Suppose he is indeed a secret, foreign-born Muslim agent who is scheming to undermine American family values while killing off as many grandmothers as possible.
If all that were true, why on earth would he be trying so hard to reform our health care system? We already know how to prod families into divorce and take a life unnecessarily every 30 minutes — all we need to do is reject reform and stick with exactly what we have.
… why on earth would he be trying so hard to reform our health care system?… D. E.Rodriguez
First off, calling something “reform” doesn't make it reform. Reform would consist of finding the areas that have failed and fixing them. All of the bills that made it out of committee and Mr. Obama's talking points all have one thing in common: they would increase medical spending. That's the only reason that Pharma, the AMA, and many health insurance companies are on his side.
As for why: he, and many of the Democrats, are obviously a more liberal thinkers, and therefore believe that giving more government benefits to the poor, and fighting for-profit enterprise, will solve problems. The Republicans have been no help, since their main response has been to stay the course until Medicare hits its inevitable disaster.
The point here is your binary argument: we either agree with the current versions of “reform”, or we are against reform. That sort of argument is what's making this debate into a yelling match.
“How do they feel about their leaders, on both sides of the isle, when they distort case studies, facts and figures to benefit their political gains? It’s just politics right?”
Speaking for just one American, it stinks. During the presidential elections, I had almost resigned myself not to vote for either candidate. Obama distorts what McCain said about staying in Iraq for 100 years, and even mocked him for being too old to use a computer. McCain claims that Obama's energy plan is inflating tires, and distorts his tax proposals. Either the politicians are underestimating the American people, or you and I over-estimate them. I fear, since clearly these tactics work or they wouldn't use them, that the latter may be true.
Does anyone know if Beck showed as much concern for The Constitution when the Patriot Act was passed? Just wondering…I find his present concern admirable if it is legitimate. However, it is not easy qualified as “legitimate” if he withheld comment when the Constitution was being trampled in the past.
“The point here is your binary argument: we either agree with the current versions of “reform”, or we are against reform. That sort of argument is what's making this debate into a yelling match.”
What is so “binary” about quoting some thought-provoking comments?
The liberal media have been taking the Dems's side this year, and they are shameful in engaging in the lowlife tactics increasingly sought out of desperation over the health care effort, but the public has been not only growing in opposition to what'sbeing attempted, but has grown increasingly that way throughout the year as the Dems have behaving progressively worse. Health care is shown to be overreach or the breaking point with the public and among the Dems themselves, fracturing what unity they had earlier.
That the media are wearing their Dem cheerlader uniforms and fulfilling their Dem auxiliary role is not a surprise, and they're losing respect for, yes, their damaging complicity in trying to mischaracterize the nature of the public's unease with Obama and the Dems (which includes the expected reaction to how divisive Obama and the Dems have been at times), as part of the health care effort, and colored as well by increasing desperation. It was no surprise they'd join in the predictable exploitation of Kennedy's death to appeal to the emotion of the susceptible to recover some support for the Dem health care effort, or that extreme and truly offputting positions and deliveries would be resorted to on NPR, or on the Stephanie Miller show, for example. (The substitute this week for Stephanie Miller is an incompetent speaker as well as incompetent on the issues — befitting that show, but adding to the damage done not only to lawmaking but to the damage-doers themselves.)
“The point here is your binary argument: we either agree with the current versions of 'reform,' or we are against reform. That sort of argument is what's making this debate into a yelling match.”
Not only is this a false dichotomy, as is the variant falsehood that opponents insist on the status quo. (It is also another evasion of the real issue, that the Dem “public option” based effort is not reform, but an incremental takeover that is being sought instead). Others are also falsely depicting the situation; for example, people on NPR today incorrectly described (in fact, misrepresented) the public option as a generous compromise relative to a prompt 100% federal takeover, “single-payer.”
They would done better with incrementalism had they tried an open-honest “safety net” approach, for example, perhaps aiming their efforts at Medicaid recipients as a replacement for Medicaid, and at the unemployed.
“Reform would consist of finding the areas that have failed and fixing them.”
The real reform examples I've listed have fallen on blind eyes or triggered more abuse. [rolling eyes]
And of course, that's never what this Dem effort has been about.
Obama is doing what he said he would do when he campaigned. Some people just don't like that. Every person deserves to have health care. If I have it, everyone should have it. Its a moral thing. There's not any room for discussion. I'm a real American. I have health insurance, some I pay for, some provided by the government. I am no better or worse than any other person. It will pass for the benefit of all Americans.
“There's not any room for discussion”
Even if I we accept your premise that it is our moral obligation to provide health care to all Americans, don't you think that there is at least room for discussion on how to do it?
There's no room for discussion about whether or not to provide health care for all. There is definitely room for discussion on how to do it. Discussion though – not war.
But do you see the inconsistency in that statement, and the previous one that you wrote (“There's not any room for discussion… It will pass for the benefit of all Americans.” I assume you by “it” you mean the Dem's plan, but please correct me if I'm wrong on that)? I don't mean to pick on you specifically. You just happen to have said very succinctly what many others have said more sublty–that health reform is equivalent to Obama's plan. Clearly, there are many that believe that health care reform must be done, but disagree with this particular way of doing it. In fact, most of the debate going on in the comment sections of this blog related to how it should be done, not if it should be done.
Also, it sounds like you hold the opinion that covering all Americans is an absolute must in any potential reform. I assume though, that you don't really hold that position, because Obama's plan does not cover everyone, as he has admitted. I believe the number I've heard is 97%. I assume then that you are just voicing your support for plans that cover more people, rather than reform that might cover a fewer number of people. That's certainly a reasonable position, and I share it myself. However, as you know there is a cost to doing this. If I came up with a plan–either an entirely new plan, or a modification to the Democrats' proposals, that would be budget neutral without raising taxes, and covered 94% of the population, would you necessarily be opposed to it since it doesn't cover 97%? If so, I would ask why you accept a plan that covers 97% when you could instead favor a single-payer system which would cover 100%. Is there an x% that we *must* cover, no matter what the cost? If so, would you agree that the x is a subjective number, and other people might have differing, but still moral, ideas of what x should be?
So, there is plenty of room for discussion.
The 'it' that I believe will pass is the health care reform bill which right now doesn't exist in any kind of passable form. So there definitely is plenty of room for discussion. What I meant when I said that there is no room for discussion is that the health care reform must happen – there is no room for discussion about that fact, in my estimation.
I read your percentages of people covered in a variety of plans and I wonder which 3% or 6% won't be covered and how can that possibly be acceptable. Who chooses who isn't covered? I can agree that the x% covered is a subjective number based on different scenarios and that the fact that the x isn't 100% does not make the idea less than moral. But how could we leave anyone out?
These four concepts were composed by a social justice group (I forget the name now) and were discussed in light of their stewardship-like qualities and aptness as a guide to use in discussions about health care reform. (I sent these in a letter to my Senators and Representatives and got three of four responses – form letter style - so I don't know if anyone liked them or not).
——–
Covers everyone, so that no person relies on an emergency room for their health care or delays treatment because they lack insurance;
Provides quality coverage that is truly affordable to all families regardless of income;
Protects and enhances the health of lower-income families and children by strengthening Medicaid and SCHIP; and
Rests on a financially sustainable foundation.
————
A single-payer system, after all is said and done, being the only option that would cover 100% of the population would be a viable option. I'm not sure how the insurance companies would deal with it, and that might make the menu of insurance plan options that Obama talks about a little more palatable.
adelinesdad wrote, in response to jdskansas:
But do you see the inconsistency in that statement, and the previous one that you wrote (“There's not any room for discussion… It will pass for the benefit of all Americans.” I assume you by “it” you mean the Dem's plan, but please correct me if I'm wrong on that)? I don't mean to pick on you specifically. You just happen to have said very succinctly what many others have said more sublty–that health reform is equivalent to Obama's plan. Clearly, there are many that believe that health care reform must be done, but disagree with this particular way of doing it. In fact, most of the debate going on in the comment sections of this blog related to how it should be done, not if it should be done.
Also, it sounds like you hold the opinion that covering all Americans is an absolute must in any potential reform. I assume though, that you don't really hold that position, because Obama's plan does not cover everyone, as he has admitted. I believe the number I've heard is 97%. I assume then that you are just voicing your support for plans that cover more people, rather than reform that might cover a fewer number of people. That's certainly a reasonable position, and I share it myself. However, as you know there is a cost to doing this. If I came up with a plan–either an entirely new plan, or a modification to the Democrats' proposals, that would be budget neutral without raising taxes, and covered 94% of the population, would you necessarily be opposed to it since it doesn't cover 97%? If so, I would ask why you accept a plan that covers 97% when you could instead favor a single-payer system which would cover 100%. Is there an x% that
we *must* cover, no matter what the cost? If so, would you agree that the x is a subjective number, and other people might have differing, but still moral, ideas of what x should be?
So, there is plenty of room for discussion.
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I agree with the general idea behind those 4 principles (actually the first 3 seem to be saying the same thing in different ways, but that's besides that point).
“But how could we leave anyone out?”
Short of a single-payer system, the people that will be left out will be those who don't feel that buying health insurance is worth it to them, either because they would consider that they can't afford it, or they can afford it but aren't willing to pay whatever it costs, despite whatever government incentives or penalties exist. For example, let's say, when considering government incentives and penalties, buying a reasonable health insurance plan would cost someone $100 dollars a month. Now, if someone truly can't afford that $100 (recognizing that “can't afford” is somewhat subjective), then we haven't done a good enough job at making it affordable to low-income families. On the other hand, maybe they can afford it, but still don't want to pay that money–they'd rather pay for something else. It's not that they don't want health insurance–just not at that price.
So, the question of how many people we “leave out” is really a question of where we draw the line between people who truly can't afford it, and people who just choose to buy other things instead. It's possible that 3% is actually too low, and we're actually just giving people subsidies (at great tax-payer expense) who really don't need them. Or maybe it's too high, and part of that 3% are people who really can't afford insurance. This is mostly a subjective debate, as the definition of “can't afford” is not precise.
So, I think it's an interesting discussion which at least partially depends on subjective issues, in addition to the hard facts often cited. That's why I reacted as I did as your statement that there is no room for discussion. I'm glad that you've clarified that statement.
“I agree with the general idea behind those 4 principles (actually the first 3 seem to be saying the same thing in different ways, but that's besides that point).”
They're a great encapsulation of progressives' challenges getting their way, though. That the first three are redundant hands ammunition to those accusing them of not thinking through the issue.
Even “covers everyone” is symptomatic, because it punts on the hard but absolutely central question of “how far?”