a different kind of page scandal

While four reporters combined forces on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times for not one, but two long stories about the race for the White House, 2008, one will have to turn all the way to page 11—of the opinion section—to find some actual reporting.

Perhaps I should not look a gift horse in the mouth, but I can’t help but observe that while Messrs. Nagourney, Zeleny, Cooper, and Luo spend prize, above-the-fold real estate covering the horserace, the editorial board has actually taken the time, and the entire space allotted for all editorials, to detail the differences between all the major presidential candidates of both parties on the subject of national health coverage.

It strikes me as just a bit confused and confusing, not that the editorial board should express interest in the positions of would-be chief executives, but that a reporter with the experience or esteem of any of the men mentioned above can’t muster the same degree of fascination—or that the editors of the news portion of the newspaper don’t see fit, after all the navel gazing of the Judy Miller/Jason Blair years, to mandate that when covering a political race, they report on what ideas make candidates run, rather than handicap how they are running.

it was too stupid a joke—until fox called it news

I swear upon a stack of hyperlinks. . . . Last weekend, when it became known that five of the seven suspects in the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow were employed by British hospitals, I was all set to write a sarcastic post about how national healthcare causes terrorism. . .

. . . but I decided it was just too stupid to waste your time.

Of course, I don’t have to fill a 24-hour news cycle with rightist propaganda, so I had the luxury of making that judgment call. It seems the folks at Fox News aren’t as fortunate.

Today [Thursday] on Fox News’s Your World With Neil Cavuto, National Review Online columnist Jerry Bowyer attacked Michael Moore’s movie SiCKO and its positive portrayal of the health care in countries such as Britain and France. He argued that national health care systems are breeding grounds for terrorists because they are “bureaucratic.” “I think the terrorists have shown over and over again…they’re very good at gaming the system with bureaucracies,” said Bowyer.

Perhaps the most hysterical point of all is that there is actually a coordinated PR blitz to denigrate SiCKO. . . which is a popular Hollywood movie! So much money; so few brains.

My other thought upon reading Bowyer’s comments: If bureaucracies are breeding grounds for terrorists, perhaps we should turn a wary eye toward the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. . . or maybe we should put private health insurers on the terrorist watch list:

Only 4% of Medicare and Medicaid budgets go to administration compared to 20% and more for private insurance. According to the World Health Organization, private insurers higher costs are "mainly due to the extensive bureaucracy required to assess risk, rate premiums, design benefit packages and review, pay or refuse claims."

[emphasis so added]

all you need is a dollar and a dream

Former Secretary of Labor and University of California professor Robert Reich pretty much nails it:

In the United States, if you are seriously depressed, you can purchase anti-depressive drugs like Prozac, but only if you have a prescription from a doctor. Anti-depressants are enormously beneficial to millions of people but they are also potentially dangerous if used improperly. So, you have to see a doctor and get an assessment before you can go to a drug store and purchase one.

But in the United States, in places like Virginia, a seriously depressed or deranged person can walk into a store and buy a semi-automatic handgun and a box of ammunition. All you need is two forms of identification. You don’t need permission from a doctor or counselor or anyone in the business of screening people to make sure [you’re] fit to have a gun.

We can debate the relative benefits and dangers of anti-depressants and semi-automatic handguns, but if 30,000 Americans were killed each year by anti-depressants, as they are by handguns, anti-depressants would be even more strictly regulated. So why aren't handguns? Consider the politics.

Reich nails it, but I have plenty more nails to hammer away on over at capitoilette. . . .