The Latest News on Health Care Reform

There's no dearth of news about our subject on the internet. A Google search of the term health care reform a moment ago yielded 41,623 news results. Here's the top story:

Will healthcare reform drive costs down? A little, report says.

Christian Science Monitor - Gail Russell Chaddock - ‎1 hour ago
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A report released Monday by the Congressional Budget Office suggests that the Senate healthcare reform bill would have a modest effect on average Americans' ...

Here are some others:

Divided US Senate starts healthcare reform bill debate BBC News

After Long Wind-Up, Senate begins health care debate Baltimore Sun

White House Pushes for Passage of Senate Health Care Bill CBS News

How do you choose which news to read? There are lots of media outlets. Some clearly hold to higher journalistic standards than others. There's a good overview with links to discussions about journalism ethics and standards here.

Did you hear about the brouhaha regarding the FOX News report about Rep. Michele Bachmann's anti-health care reform rally? It's quite a tale. Comedian Jon Stewart pointed out that Sean Hannity exaggerated the turnout for this rally and that FOX showed footage from an earlier rally to give a false impression. You can watch the clip here at Media Matters or here at Mediaite, or here at Yahoo News.

As it is, it's questionable ethics for FOX to be "sponsoring" such rallies; a legitimate news outlet does not make news (Wm. Randolph Hearst's infamous quote "You give me the pictures, I'll give you the war!" notwithstanding).

My high school aged son and I discussed this issue. He felt strongly there should be some action taken against FOX. After all, when a "wardrobe malfunction" results in a $550,000 fine from the Federal Communications Commission against CBS, isn't there a precedent for protecting the public from indecency? If a newscaster falsifies information and misleads the public, isn't that indecent too?

Out of the mouths of babes...

What do you think?

What in the World's Happening with Health Care?

I'm up early this morning, working on our Thanksgiving feast. I can't offer you any sweet potatoes or turkey, but here are a few goodies I discovered about health care systems of other countries.

Tonny van der Salm clued me in about an excellent public television program she'd seen.
In Sick Around the World, FRONTLINE teams up with veteran Washington Post foreign correspondent T.R. Reid to find out how five other capitalist democracies -- the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland -- deliver health care, and what the US might learn from their successes and their failures.

You can watch the entire program online here.

There's an interesting discussion of France and the Netherlands' health systems by Jonathan Cohn at The Boston Globe.

BBC News has some healthcare comparisons on their site here.

Remember yesterday's post, the song "We're Number 37" by Paul Hipp? PolitiFact has a detailed look at the World Health Organization statistics in their Truth-O-Meter feature article.

What do you think of these sources and their conclusions? Have you found other good information on the subject? Please share in the comments!

And have a lovely Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for my great students!