A health care primer for media who should already know this stuff
August 20, 2009 3:20 pm ET by Matt Gertz
As has been repeatedly noted here, despite Howard Kurtz’s protestations to the contrary, the media’s best efforts to report on the debate over health care reform have resulted in a public that believes any number of false claims opponents have made about the legislation. Perhaps the reason that has happened is because even though health care has been among the top issues under discussion since President Obama took office, prominent media figures remain woefully ignorant of its elementary details.
For example, Lou Dobbs seems to have a problem absorbing basic facts about health care:
DOBBS: Is universal health care, the so-called public option, or single-payer, which -- however you want to break it down…
Similarly, earlier this month, Chris Wallace stated:
WALLACE: Congressman Rangel, here's a top House Democrat saying the Republicans are right, that the public option is a stalking horse for a single-payer government takeover like we see in Britain or Canada.
Ok, full stop. Let’s “break it down” in a way that doesn't involve journalists who should know better conflating a bunch of terms that mean different things: Universal health care is different from the public option, which is different from single payer. Britain and Canada have very, very different health care systems.
Universal health care refers to the goal -- not any specific policy proposal – to provide quality, accessible health care to everyone in the country. There are many different ways you can get there; we currently aren’t following any of them.
The public option is a proposal included in the Senate health committee and House bills that would establish as one option among many a government-run health insurance plan. It would not be open to anyone who wishes to enroll in it, and those who are eligible would be able to choose it from a list of other, private options. CBO estimates that if the public option passes in the form envisioned by the House draft bill, only about 11 or 12 million people would be enrolled in it by 2019.
Single-payer is a health care model wherein a single source – usually the government – finances all or almost all health care expenditures; basically, everyone in the country has government-provided health insurance. You go to the doctor or the hospital, they treat you, the government pays. Our Medicare program is effectively a single-payer system for the elderly. Canada’s health care system features single-payer insurance available to all citizens, with doctors working in public or private practices, but receiving payment for most treatments from the government. There is no proposal currently under serious discussion that would institute a nationwide single-payer system.
The United Kingdom has a single-provider health care model, wherein the government owns and operates the health care system, employing all doctors and other medical personnel through the National Health Service and paying them for all medical services. Our own VA is a single-provider system for veterans. There is no proposal currently under any level of discussion whatsoever that would institute a nationwide single-provider system.
Yes, this stuff is a little complicated – at least, it requires media figures to actually study the issue a bit and develop some understanding of the basic facts at hand. Then again, that’s theoretically what they get paid for – to learn about the issues and educate their audience.
Or, you know, they could just keep talking about the politics of it all. That’s worked out pretty well so far, right?
The media certainly likes drama, but drama will never rank above the ideology of media owners, no matter how much money it would provide.
Ratings and ideology could happily coincide in the media's golden age, when it could lie for free. With the price of lying growing, the media suddenly finds itself unable to change and favor ratings over ideology.
I suggested that, since admission to many of these town halls was done through an online lottery, there should be an online quiz that must be passed before qualifying to attend, along with all of the information needed to pass the quiz.
Along with the basic info, some common misconceptions and popular misinformation could be clarified at the site.
That way, it could be guaranteed that anybody walking into a health care discussion was somebody who actually wanted to discuss the issues, and was willing to put in a little work towards educating themselves.
This MMFA item would be a good starting point for the quiz, along with a few other items here showing the anti-reform propaganda.
I know, it's a very elitist idea.
But at least right wingers would finally have some reality-based reasons to play the victim.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/health-reform-without-a-public-plan-the-german-model/
And see here:
http://cmhmd.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-care-in-germany.html
Cheers,
A walk-through on the German System:
"If you are employed in Germany and you are earning less than the threshold (Versicherungspflichtgrenze) of EUR 48,600.- gross per year (EUR 4,050 gross per month), you are automatically and compulsorily insured in a public health insurance scheme.
(..)
Now if you are earning more than the threshold of EUR 4,050 gross salary per month, you can elect to leave the public health insurance and get a private health insurance while employed in Germany."
Germany does have one of the same problems as the US, though: not all doctors treat the public and the private insurances alike. They might make you wait longer if you come in with the public insurance.
IMO (and experience) the best and least bureaucratic systems are in Scandinavia, where you simply go to the hospital when you're sick and get treated - without any paperwork and without you having anything to do with any lawyers or companies etc. And everyone gets treated the same because it's a right. The hospitals are funded by taxes and there are no bills between you and anyone else - just public funding of the institutions that deliver what is a right - just like public roads, police departments etc are funded and maintained, so that citizens can use them without applying for permissions from private companies or public bureaucrats. This system is open to the problem of politicians suddenly deciding that general funding of public healt should be cut down, but so are all other public needs, like police, military, roads etc. As long as there is a consensus that this is indeed one of the things we need to finance and we judge policians on their effort to do that, then it works.
But that might not work in the US where there is no consensus about providing the needs of society and where politicians are often judged by the public on things that are completely irrelevant to their actions (like their religion, sexuality etc). The German system should not be a problem though - it's just an expansion of Medicare to make sure there's a minimum guarantee of health for people who can then buy a private insurance when they can afford it.
This is true if you don't consider HR 676 "under serious discussion". Sadly, that's probably true.
You can keep quiet and have people "question" your intelligence or open your mouth and "remove all doubt"
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/what-is-socialized-medicine-a-taxonomy-of-health-care-systems/
For more Uwe:
http://cmhmd.blogspot.com/search/label/Uwe%20Reinhardt
Cheers,