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Better health care coverage, please

August 18, 2009 12:52 pm ET by Eric Boehlert

The good news is that the topic of health care reform was, by far, the most covered topic in the news media last week, according to Journalism.org. It was a landslide.

Cable news barely covered any other topic last week:

That's good, right? The country's having a robust discussion about an important public policy issue, right?

Yeah, not quite. Also from Journalism.org [emphasis added]:

Last week’s coverage of the proposed health care legislation was overwhelmingly focused on the two p’s—politics and protests. Those two storylines accounted for about three-quarters of the overall coverage of the subject.

So much for a public policy discussion. Wonder if that media obsession with the three p's (politics, protests and process) has anything to do with the fact that most Americans think the health care coverage debate has been rather abysmal.

A Pew Research survey earlier this month found:

The public gives news organizations low marks for their coverage of health care. More than seven-in-ten say the media has done either a poor (40%) or only fair (32%) job explaining details of the various proposals. Just 21% offer a positive rating of this coverage: 4% excellent and 17% good.

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    • Author by wookie (August 18, 2009 12:58 pm ET)
      1  
      Its the Jerry Springer factor. Substantial discussions of policy are boring but screaming loons are fun.
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    • Author by The_Cat (August 18, 2009 1:11 pm ET)
         
      To me, this points out the viability of the two puppet hypothesis. There is really only one political party in the country, and that is the one that has been bought and paid for by corporate sponsorship. For the sake of keeping up appearances, lip service is publicly paid to Democrats and Republicans, but really, they are all working for the same side: the corporate well being.

      Prove me wrong, Mr. President. Prove that you are truly a Democrat, and that you truly lead a party that will at least sometimes do what is right for the country and not big business. We desperately need a public option. You can tell how badly they fear it by the lies they are willing to tell about it.

      And for the next election, I propose a dress code. Every elected official appearing in either the Senate or the House must wear a suit. On that suit must be emblazoned the logos of every company that gave them more than $100 towards their campaign. The more money, the bigger the logo. Kind of like NASCAR. That way, when someone with a big Health Alliance sticker covering half their back stands up to cry about the public option leading to socialism and death panels, we'll know what they're REALLY saying, which is that their benefactors profits are in peril.
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      • Author by nerzog (August 18, 2009 1:49 pm ET)
           
        I like that idea. Congress would look like a Nascar pit.
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      • Author by bilbo_dies (August 18, 2009 1:55 pm ET)
           
        It takes time to work through but; followthemoney.org is a decent site for finding out where all the money comes from. Of course, a better idea would be if every congressperson publicized every donation they received with particular attention paid to any donation from lobbyist, industy, etc.

        For me, the vote is still out. It is up to Obama to show what he is really made of. Being the type of person that he appears to be, I believe he will continue with honest debate and discussion, when maybe what he really needs to do is bend arms and get everyone out in public, and on record, as to why they agree or disagree.
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