Last week we kicked off a two-week News Hunt on Health Care. With Congress in recess, many news organizations turned away from the debate on Capitol Hill and focused instead on the deeper arguments behind reforming the nation's health care system.
Most of last week's top rated stories on this topic were opinions, several of which attempted to distill the health care reform bill currently under negotiation in the Finance Committee. A joint column (NT reviews) between the New Republic's Jonathan Cohn and Kaisar Health News warned that a bill with too many compromises could appease Congress but ultimately fail the public. The warning was directed at President Obama, who has urged lawmakers to pass legislation by the fall:
"To get something through Congress, Obama probably needs some centrist support--or, at the very least, he needs to make a good show of courting it. But Obama must be wary of conceding too much. Even in strictly political terms, a good bill that passes with a narrow margin may preferable to a weak bill that carries huge majorities."
At the core of the debate over Obama's plan is the so-called "public option" -- a government health insurance program that anyone could opt into. Obama's Republican critics, and some Democrats, have worried that it would amount to a government takeover of private health insurance. Echoing TNR's caveat on compromises, Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, rejected these claims in a blog post (NT reviews) that was rated highly by our community:
"Mr. Obama says he wants a public plan. But the strength of the opposition to it, along with his own commitment to making the emerging bill "bipartisan," is leading toward some oddball compromises... To get health care moving again in Congress, the president will have to be clear about how to deal with its costs and whether and how a public plan is to be included as an option. The two are intimately related. Enough talk. He should come out swinging for the public option."
The American Medical Association (AMA) is one of the public option's detractors, but the organization's formal opposition to the plan belies deep fissures in the medical community over public health insurance, as reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune (NT reviews). About a fifth of the country's physicians belong to the AMA, making it the largest of its kind, but with a collection of smaller groups advocating a public option, Obama may not need its full-fledged support. A physician and a health administrator co-authored an opinion in the LA Times that reiterated this point -- "lawmakers should take note: the AMA does not speak for all physicians," they wrote (NT reviews).
Critics from the right, left and center have looked to other countries' health care systems to support and reject different levels of government-sponsored insurance. Two of last week's top rated stories had a positive take on other systems. Jonathan Cohn emerged for a second time in our top stories, penning an op-ed in the Boston Globe (NT reviews) that favors the Dutch and French health care systems as worth emulating here in the U.S. And the Wall Street Journal (NT reviews) examined how some U.S. clinics have taken lessons in HIV/AIDS treatment from programs in Zambia.
Many thanks to Kristin Gorski, the host of our Health Care News Hunt, for her thoughtful reviews and leadership! (Kristin is also editing our upcoming News Literacy Guide, which we plan to release later this month). We'd also like to thank (and introduce) Joey Baker, who is spearheading our community outreach during his summer internship at NewsTrust. Joey has been actively promoting this News Hunt on Twitter, Facebook and to bloggers and publications across the political spectrum -- he has already brought in many new reviewers to our site. We're very grateful to them both for their invaluable contributions to our cause!
Our Health Care News Hunt continues through Sunday, July 12. This week we’ll look at how different news sources are covering key issues in today’s health care system. We’ll be reviewing independent news and blog coverage of this topic, as well as opinions from the right, center and left. Compare stories on our Health Care topic page.
By Derek Hawkins, with Joey Baker, Kaizar Campwala and Fabrice Florin
I believe that it is time to get health care reform.
Posted by: Joe L. Ogan | July 13, 2009 at 04:23 PM