Health Care video

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gdNS2l63Mz8

Health Care video

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gdNS2l63Mz8

Colbert health care story

I went back to The Colbert Report website to see if there had been any health care stories in the past couple of weeks, and there was one from April 1 (the only health care policy story on The Colbert Report that I've found since we started this blog).

Colbert made a joke about the difference in Clinton and Obama's health plans, saying that "Hillary mandates insurance for all Americans, while Barack has an angry black preacher," referencing the large amount of media coverage that the Reverend Wright comments received. Then he discussed Oregon's new health care system that uses a lottery system to decide who is covered. His very sarcastic tone makes the viewer realize that he thinks that a lottery is a very bad idea for making decision about health care. This piece is funny and interesting. It is relevant because it is a new idea (although in Colbert's opinion, a bad one) for a health care system that is broken throughout the country.

McCain Health Care

On April 29th, 2008, NPR's "All Things Considered" discusses John McCain's health care plan. 

The 5 min. segment begins with Scott Horsley stating the facts that McCain and the Democrats agree on which is the state of rising health care costs and the urgency of a new health care plan. He then begins anaylizing McCain's plan with quick clips of McCain describing his plan.  He compares his plan to those of Clinton and Obama.  Horsley then interviews a Harvard Business School Professor and her agreement with McCain's plan.  She describes it as a great consumer driven health care movement.  Then Horsely interviews an MIT economist who states the plan is not good for older, poorer and sicker people.  I enjoyed how this segment ended by comparing health care to cancer.  "There are a few breakthroughs in cancer research, just a lot of hard work.  The same apparently goes for fixing the nations health care system."  

I thought this segment did a great job of trying to fit as much information as possible in a short amount of time.  It covered as much as it could about McCain's new plan although most of it did tilt to a disagreement with it.  The two experts in the segment did a great analysis of the plans and it was very balanced from my perspective.  I feel that NPR remains very balanced on presenting their issues.  They did not side with a particular candidate but rather determined that even with all the options of the candidates plans, improving the health care system is a large task to take on.  This is a different perspective than the usual "horserace" that is portrayed in the media with health care.  

Link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90041706

Krugman Op-Ed Piece Highlights Healthcare Again

Paul Krugman’s New York Times op-ed piece for April 4 focused on Elizabeth Edwards attack on John McCain’s health care proposal. He presents the basics of Edwards’ appearance, but intertwines her statements with policy details and an overall explanation of the healthcare system in the United States. He finishes by giving a similar evaluation to Obama and Clinton’s plans, and expressing the hope that healthcare would receive more attention once the basketball has finished.

The piece is an excellent example of the differences between a traditional newspaper article and an op-ed piece. While the newspaper article on Edwards’ appearances stated the facts objectively, Krugman clearly attacks McCain’s proposal, and cites the advantages of Clinton’s plan over Obama’s. Since it is a New York Times op-ed piece and not a random blog, Krugman is careful to use specific policy details and economics in his attacks on the candidates, but the impression a reader of Krugman’s piece would get is a very different one than the reader of the above article would take away.

New York Times Covers Elizabeth Edwards Appearances

On April 10, 2008, the New York Times published an interview with Elizabeth Edwards in which she discusses her reasons for not endorsing a candidate as well as her recent statements on the three remaining candidates’ health care proposals. She has received attention in the last week for attacking John McCain’s proposal, but has also come out in support of Clinton’s plan, which mandates health care for all citizens, over Obama’s, which only requires children to be covered.

Another example of objective coverage of healthcare in the 2008 election by traditional media. The piece is an interview, so does not contain the opposing arguments to Edwards’ statements, but otherwise remains neutral. It includes a basic report on the interview without getting into anything other than elementary policy details.

NPR's On Point: Hillary's second time around for Health Care reform

On September 18, 2007, Tom Ashbrook spoke about Hillary Clinton and her new health care reform during the campaign.  He discusses how Hillary cam across many obstacles 14 years earlier and how she is back now with a "gentler" and "kinder" reform that focuses on choice.  He begins the interview with an interview with Susana Meadows, a senior writer for Newsweek discussing her article, "How Hillary won the health care industry" and then continues the segment with interviews with Dr. Atul Gawande, a former health advisor to Bill Clinton, Stuart Altman the current health care advisor for Barak Obama and Scott Atlas, the senior health care advisor to Rudy Giuliani.  During the interviews, Ashbrook took phone calls from citizens throughout the country from Iowa to New York voicing their opinions about Hillary's health care reform. 

NPR provided a very balanced frame for this news piece with experts ranging from supporting Hillary, to Barak to the then potential republican candidate, Giuliani.  Having the people's concerns being called in added to the balance.  However, after reading the readings about gender, this is a prime example of how a woman only represents 1/4 of the people interviewed.  They also described Hillary's new health care plan as more womanly by using the adjectives, "Kinder" and "Gentler". It appears that Hillary didn't have success with her "manly" approach 14 years ago so she made it more feminine in hopes to have better results.  Did she have to feminize the health care issue because it is usually an issue for women?