... along with Congress, Obama, and the rest of the establishment. (There's that E-word).Thanks to Fair and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) and the Godless Liberal Homo blog, we have something to do.
CONTACT:
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN
404-827-1500
elizabeth.cohen@turner.com
Let her know that you'd like her to include the single-payer proposal, Medicare for All, as an option in the healthcare reform debate.
Why does she need to be reminded of this? Here are a couple snippets:
Cohen recently argued:
"Fifteen years ago you sometimes heard--actually you heard quite a bit--people saying: "Let's have a single-payer system like in Canada. The government is going to be the health insurer for everybody."
FAIR reports:
Cohen is right that there were many people in favor of single-payer 15 years ago; as a FAIR Extra! article from that era (7-8/93) pointed out, New York Times polling since 1990 had "consistently found majorities--ranging from 54 percent to 66 percent--in favor of tax-financed national health insurance." The numbers today? A New York Times/CBS poll (1/11-15/09) found 59 percent in favor of government-provided national health insurance.
But CNN's Elizabeth Cohen tried to argue that we have a better chance of health care reform now than in the Clinton era, by claiming
Fifteen years ago you sometimes heard--actually you heard quite a bit--people saying: "Let's have a single-payer system like in Canada. The government is going to be the health insurer for everybody." You don't hear that as much as you used to. So more people are on the same page more than they once were.
Her logic would make sense if her underlying presumption was correct, but as FAIR points out, It's just not true that more people have rejected a single-payer system. In fact, by the end of this debate, I'm willing to bet public opinion will be even more supportive of Medicare for All than they are now, because more will be educated about it... no thanks to the corporate, advertiser controlled media.
Psssst... Do Something
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