Comments on: PBS Distorts Global Healthcare Options http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/04/07/pbs-distorts-global-healthcare-options/ The national media watch group Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:31:47 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 hourly 1 By: Robert Bear http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/04/07/pbs-distorts-global-healthcare-options/comment-page-1/#comment-43545 Robert Bear Sun, 26 Sep 2010 22:47:28 +0000 http://www.fair.org/blog/?p=8009#comment-43545 The cynical and nauseating immorality expressed in this editorial about how the special interests were flat excluded when it came to the EVIL corrupt Max Baccus et al actions to suffocate single payer option. Yes I say EVIL because profiteering on a monopoly hold of peoples solice from suffering is EVIL. As Bernie Sanders said, the only way for a corporation to make a profit on "health insurance" is to deny someone treatment when they need it. If that is going to be how it is, let's just eliminate all medical licensure and allow everyone free market access to all goods and services - including making all testing labs and all medicines 'over the counter', and let we the people figure it out ourselves like we did a century or two ago. By soft peddling corruption you are feeding the potential for violent insurrection, like we saw recently at John Hopkins. You appear to be part of the solution. But really you are part of the problem! Even smart aleck medical doctors who are more interested in fame and fortune than in relieving suffering of their charges are doing more harm than good. And if the medical system drives the government into irreversable insolvency - it will be a failure rather than anything anyone can be proud of. You are turning a deaf ear. And you are doing more harm than good. Read FAIR: The cynical and nauseating immorality expressed in this editorial about how the special interests were flat excluded when it came to the EVIL corrupt Max Baccus et al actions to suffocate single payer option. Yes I say EVIL because profiteering on a monopoly hold of peoples solice from suffering is EVIL.

As Bernie Sanders said, the only way for a corporation to make a profit on "health insurance" is to deny someone treatment when they need it. If that is going to be how it is, let's just eliminate all medical licensure and allow everyone free market access to all goods and services – including making all testing labs and all medicines 'over the counter', and let we the people figure it out ourselves like we did a century or two ago.

By soft peddling corruption you are feeding the potential for violent insurrection, like we saw recently at John Hopkins. You appear to be part of the solution. But really you are part of the problem! Even smart aleck medical doctors who are more interested in fame and fortune than in relieving suffering of their charges are doing more harm than good. And if the medical system drives the government into irreversable insolvency – it will be a failure rather than anything anyone can be proud of.

You are turning a deaf ear. And you are doing more harm than good. Read FAIR:

]]> By: Until further notice, Frontline producers (not reporters) have lost my respect — Media Slackers http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/04/07/pbs-distorts-global-healthcare-options/comment-page-1/#comment-3555 Until further notice, Frontline producers (not reporters) have lost my respect — Media Slackers Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:06:09 +0000 http://www.fair.org/blog/?p=8009#comment-3555 [...] error at best. Here’s just one example of the movement this has spawned, taken from the FAIR.org site (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) which compiled a petition to the Frontline [...] [...] error at best. Here's just one example of the movement this has spawned, taken from the FAIR.org site (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) which compiled a petition to the Frontline [...]

]]> By: Doug Latimer http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/04/07/pbs-distorts-global-healthcare-options/comment-page-1/#comment-3534 Doug Latimer Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:42:41 +0000 http://www.fair.org/blog/?p=8009#comment-3534 Just thought I'd pass this along: PBS Lashes Back over Single Payer Dustup by Russell Mokhiber http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/08-0 Just thought I'd pass this along:

PBS Lashes Back over Single Payer Dustup
by Russell Mokhiber

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/08-0

]]> By: fheinstein http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/04/07/pbs-distorts-global-healthcare-options/comment-page-1/#comment-3532 fheinstein Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:16:14 +0000 http://www.fair.org/blog/?p=8009#comment-3532 I am a decades-long contributor to PBS, I turn to PBS for unbiased reporting—the kind of reporting that the corporate-owned networks do not provide. I particularly look forward to Frontline as one of the best news analysis shows on TV. But I was very disappointed at last week's documentary on the problems of the U.S.'s health care non-system. You did a fine job of pointing out the problems that people face when trying to navigate the complex and difficult-to-understand fine print put into insurance policies. Who reads or understands them? I don't. And clearly the woman whose insurance was canceled by Blue Cross didn't either. The problem with your documentary--as i am sure you knew when you put the show together--is that you presented the insurance industry as the only alternative to the present non-system. If only everyone were required to buy insurance (and thus guarantee that insuring people would be profitable for the insurance industry) then the Good Old Boys and Girls of the insurance industry would so glad to help us out and provide "health security." Come on! You know better than to present private insurance as the only alternative. If I remember correctly, you even produced a Frontline episode on the subject some months ago which presented single-payer (the forbidden word you dared not utter last week) as an alternative. And why did your report not even mention Representative Conyers' HR 676 which offers a sensible solution to our health care crisis? You also failed to separate HEALTH CARE from HEALTH INSURANCE, implying that health care is available only through the insurance industry—which is the kind of nonsense the insurance industry mouths in their self-serving way. And you did not mention the unneeded complexity of having many different policies, each of which requires special forms and offers a unique menu of covered services. All this requires the creation of unneeded job classification--people to be familiar with all the different policies and fill out the forms so that the non-system can grind on. So what are we to make of all that Frontline left out? Are you also beholden to the insurance industry for funding? And did you accept funds from the insurance industry to produce this show? Or others? Almost no mainstream media outlets discuss single-payer these days, or analyze the parasitic nature of the health insurance industry which siphons off funding which ought to go towards producing the social good of health care, and instead uses its ill-gotten money to buy off elected officials and ensure that the news media presents the bloodsucking insurance industry as the only avenue of delivering health care. Last night I watched Frontline’s report on the corrupt practices of multinational corporations that bribe potential customers in order to get business. Your report was very clear on the corrosive effects that corporate bribery leads to. I wish you would be more upfront about the corruption of news outlets by funders who offer money with strings attached (i.e., bribery) or threaten to withhold money if the reporting is not to the funder’s liking (the other side of the same coin). Shame on Frontline! Shame on PBS! I expect better of you. I am a decades-long contributor to PBS, I turn to PBS for unbiased reporting—the kind of reporting that the corporate-owned networks do not provide. I particularly look forward to Frontline as one of the best news analysis shows on TV. But I was very disappointed at last week's documentary on the problems of the U.S.'s health care non-system. You did a fine job of pointing out the problems that people face when trying to navigate the complex and difficult-to-understand fine print put into insurance policies. Who reads or understands them? I don't. And clearly the woman whose insurance was canceled by Blue Cross didn't either.

The problem with your documentary--as i am sure you knew when you put the show together--is that you presented the insurance industry as the only alternative to the present non-system. If only everyone were required to buy insurance (and thus guarantee that insuring people would be profitable for the insurance industry) then the Good Old Boys and Girls of the insurance industry would so glad to help us out and provide "health security."

Come on! You know better than to present private insurance as the only alternative. If I remember correctly, you even produced a Frontline episode on the subject some months ago which presented single-payer (the forbidden word you dared not utter last week) as an alternative. And why did your report not even mention Representative Conyers' HR 676 which offers a sensible solution to our health care crisis?

You also failed to separate HEALTH CARE from HEALTH INSURANCE, implying that health care is available only through the insurance industry—which is the kind of nonsense the insurance industry mouths in their self-serving way. And you did not mention the unneeded complexity of having many different policies, each of which requires special forms and offers a unique menu of covered services. All this requires the creation of unneeded job classification--people to be familiar with all the different policies and fill out the forms so that the non-system can grind on.

So what are we to make of all that Frontline left out? Are you also beholden to the insurance industry for funding? And did you accept funds from the insurance industry to produce this show? Or others? Almost no mainstream media outlets discuss single-payer these days, or analyze the parasitic nature of the health insurance industry which siphons off funding which ought to go towards producing the social good of health care, and instead uses its ill-gotten money to buy off elected officials and ensure that the news media presents the bloodsucking insurance industry as the only avenue of delivering health care.

Last night I watched Frontline’s report on the corrupt practices of multinational corporations that bribe potential customers in order to get business. Your report was very clear on the corrosive effects that corporate bribery leads to. I wish you would be more upfront about the corruption of news outlets by funders who offer money with strings attached (i.e., bribery) or threaten to withhold money if the reporting is not to the funder’s liking (the other side of the same coin).

Shame on Frontline! Shame on PBS! I expect better of you.

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