NPR’s Misleading Report on Health Care Reform

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

BY Jacqueline Marcus
 
This morning, on my way home from the market, I was listening to NPR’s Morning Edition and was appalled by Debbie Elliott’s intentionally misleading report on the health care reform option.  Click here to listen to this mild-mannered-FOXTV presentation.  Question: Why choose Alabama for this report?  Why aren’t the mainstream media reporters interviewing people who need an affordable option for health care or those who don’t have insurance at all? The interviews always focus on white, elderly, Republican-conservatives who are both insured and misinformed.  It’s as if all those millions of people without health insurance conveniently disappeared from media coverage, including younger, middle-aged folks.
 
One expects at least a touch of ethics from NPR.  First, Debbie Elliott presented the same old, white, southern Republican complaints, fears that are based on the corporate insurance companies' propaganda of lies.  Never once did she CLARIFY fact from fiction. 
 
An NPR reporter HAS AN ETHICAL DUTY to report the facts.  It is not her job to leave listeners in a fog of confusion, which is exactly what she did.  She should have at least ended the piece with the following facts:
 
1) Health care reform is an OPTION! No one is forcing anyone’s hand to change their insurance plans to a government plan.  It is simply another option to choose from. PERIOD!
 
2) It is NOT a single-payer plan!!!!  SHEESH!  How many times must this be repeated?
 
3) It will not raise taxes on the middle-classes.  There will be a slight raise for those who earn a million dollars a year.
 
Debbie Elliott deliberately ended the story with the question: "Who can we trust?"  Well how about the reporter?!—isn’t it her job to separate fact from deceptions?  Does she, herself, not know these simple facts? If not, then she is not qualified to be a journalist.  One can only assume that NPR is also sold out to the big insurance companies as well.  SHAME ON NPR!!  Try interviewing all those millions of people who want to have an affordable option. 
 
 
Brief Bio: Jacqueline Marcus’ poems have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Ohio Review, The Antioch Review, The Journal, The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Literary Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry International, Hotel Amerika, The Delta Review, The American Poetry Journal and more.  Her book of poems, Close to the Shore, was published by Michigan State University Press.    Her political essays have been published at CommonDreams.org and BuzzFlash.com.  She taught philosophy at Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, California, and is the editor of http://www.ForPoetry.com.   She is currently promoting green technologies (solar & wind) on the island of Maui.  www.GoSolarMaui.com 

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

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