PBS Edits Out Single Payer Proposal

Censored stampThe PBS television program Frontline selectively edited an interview with a single-payer health insurance advocate, and film footage of people protesting in support of single-payer, to make it look as though they were advocating a public option instead. The public option proposal would have offered individuals a government-run health insurance program as an alternative to the mandatory purchase of private health insurance -- a completely different proposal than universal, single-payer health insurance. The Frontline report shows footage of single-payer advocate Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program, and a group of people protesting in favor of a single-payer plan. Flowers is heard saying members of her group were shut out of a Congressional hearing, but the program never mentions the single-payer concept. Instead, viewers are led to believe that Flowers and the protesters were referring to a public option concept, since that was the only progressive proposal discussed in the program. Frontline effectively made it look as though single-payer advocates did not even exist. It's not the first time Frontline has pushed single-payer out of the debate, either. When they did the same thing last year and were called on it, PBS ombudsman Michael Getler attributed the omission to a tight deadline and called it a "missed opportunity."

Comments

Absolutely incredible that anyone in this country could possibly believe that the cost of administering any single health insurance plan could possibly be more expensive than the cost of administering hundreds of different plans. It is as if no-one is capable of remembering that cost is the, repeat, THE reason for healthcare legislation in the first place. Also, it is absolutely incredible that anyone in this country could possibly believe that the medical outcomes of any single transparent, comprehensive health insurance plan could possibly, repeat, possibly be worse than the outcomes produced from hundreds of in-network-claim-denied-you're-not-covered-pre-existing-co-pay-annual-out-of-pocket-hide-and-seek-your-call-is-important-to-us-chiseling-blasphemy that is private health insurance.
All of which makes it all the more disturbing that PBS and Frontline have chosen to join the legion of media who have chosen to forsake the public trust so vital to the country that it's guarantee was the subject of the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

It makes me sick and sad that Frontline "missed the opportunity" to include Dr. Flowers. Whoops. Now I have to watch with more skepticism, or better yet, why bother. I don't need a slick rehash of the news spin. I'm glad I got to watch Bill Moyers interview of Dr. Flowers last February. Thank you CMD.

I can remember seeing something in the news about this and i must admit that its something that makes me sick to my teeth. Is there anywhere i can go and reas up on it?