Advocates of a single-payer health plan in the United States aren't exactly accustomed to seeing their efforts covered in the corporate media--or in the headline of a major newspaper story, no less. The Washington Post reminded us on June 6 what happens when media finally get around to taking a look at the issue.

Under the headline " 'Single-Payer' Supporters Challenge Democrats," reporter Dan Eggen deployed typically dismissive language in describing single-payer activists--writing that they had "struck again," referencing the "increasingly noisy" protesters who are "hounding" lawmakers. All this is part of an "offensive" that will "swamp" some apparently well-intentioned pro-White House house parties.

The real point is laid out pretty clearly:

The movement poses both an opportunity and a challenge for Obama, who is able to position himself as a centrist by opposing a single-payer plan but who risks angering a vocal part of the Democratic base.

In the strange world of corporate journalism, one can prove his/her "centrist" credentials by opposing a policy that has majority support from the public.

Eggen doesn't totally omit any reference to polling on single-payer; in fact, he reported that such polling "varies widely." But instead of giving some examples of this supposed variation, readers were treated to only one actual citation--a Kaiser Family Foundation poll that listed eight different options for expanding healthcare. (Single-payer finished last.) Eggen did explain that the polling on single-payer differs "based largely on how the issue is framed." Why, then, would you choose a rather unrepresentative example of such polling, when straight-forward poll questions are easy to come by? It's hard to say why, but it certainly fits with the media's well-established pattern of trying to hide the public's support of single-payer from the, well,  public.

Tags: Dan Eggen, single-payer, Washington Post

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 11:27 am and is filed under Healthcare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.