Silencing Single Payer

By Staff, FAIR
Posted on July 8, 2009, Printed on December 5, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.fair.org/141193/

Single-payer health insurance is seen by many healthcare workers and citizens as the best tool for expanding coverage while reducing costs. But it is rarely discussed in the media. ABC's prime time forum "Prescription for America," which ABC host Diane Sawyer pledged would feature questions to President Obama from "every vantage point," featured no questions from single-payer advocates.

The media watch-group FAIR is launching a petition to the TV networks, demanding that single-payer be included in the debate over healthcare reform.

Add your name to FAIR's petition to the TV networks at: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/592/t/9039/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1993

And then help us spread the word: please forward the link to the petition to your contacts; email this page to your friends and "share" the petition through social networking websites such as Facebook and Digg.

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Many experts see single-payer national health insurance as the most sensible solution to expand coverage to the uninsured and to reduce costs.

This proposal polls well with the public, who preferred it two-to-one over a privatized system in a recent survey (New York Times/CBS, 1/11-15/09). It is also preferred by 59 percent of physicians, according to a recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (4/1/08).

Yet a recent study by FAIR found that of hundreds of stories about healthcare in major outlets earlier this year, only five stories included the views of advocates of single-payer--none of which appeared on the television networks.

The insurance lobbies and many politicians may not want to talk about single-payer. But that makes it all the more important that the media do.

Please cover single-payer healthcare proposals, and stop silencing their advocates.

© 2009 FAIR All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.fair.org/141193/