Obama Supporters Angry But Well Behaved
COLUMBUS,OH --Traveling across Ohio Tuesday as an embedded reporter on the Health Insurance Reform Now: Let's Get It Done Bus Tour with Obama's field team, I heard the same message from Ohioans of every walk of life: While opponents of health insurance reform are the ones being featured every day in the news -- screaming and yelling about socialism and death panels -- supporters have been working quietly to make health care reform happen, and they're tired of a small, loud minority getting all of the attention.
Almost every rally goer I spoke with told me that the media is covering the sensational story instead of the real story, and they're mad about it. But as one Ohioan mother put it, "Unlike the tea party people, we aren't acting out."
Supporters of health insurance reform are undoubtedly angry. Over and over, Ohioans told me that they are tired of hearing the media give credence to myths that have already been disproved -- like death panels, Medicare changes, and bureaucrat-controlled health care. When the head of the Dayton AFL-CIO spoke about these myths at the Dayton rally, "suicide counseling" got a big laugh from the crowd, but it was a wry laugh with heads shaking all around.
"I'm so sick of all the yelling." The words of Tina Moody, a Columbus resident, have been echoed throughout the bus tour stops.
In Columbus, about a dozen protesters showed up outside the event holding fresh lemons, shouting that Obama's health insurance reform is a lemon. One protester was so loud and aggressive that she ended up by herself, stalking attendees as they tried to enter, shouting tea party "announcements" just inches from their faces as they walked past. While there were 2,500 supporters inside, most media outlets came outside to get footage of the 12 protesters outside.
"Supporters of health insurance reform are turning out in larger numbers every day," Jeremy Bird, the National Deputy Director of Organizing for America, told the crowd at one event, "You are the majority. You voted on November 4th."
Jolene Crowell, an OFA volunteer in Dayton, says that she has trouble recruiting new volunteers because they've been intimidated by the angry reactions portrayed in the news. She says, "The loudest are the sexiest news story." Crowell has been organizing teams to collect signatures in support of health care reform in high foot-traffic areas around Dayton, and she says the response has been overwhelmingly positive, but, "The few who object are really loud and distracting."
A doctor who teaches at Ohio State University Medical School says that most doctors want health insurance to be reformed, but he believes their voices are being drowned out by the misinformed, "The health insurance industry has ruined health care in America."
In Columbus I spoke with a small business owner who was motivated to attend the rally "because the general talk is that health care reform is bad for small businesses." But, she says, "I had a 23 percent increase in health insurance costs last year. I've had to raise premiums and deductibles, and my employees can't afford to keep their health insurance."
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a local town hall in one of the reddest districts in Arizona. It was boring. A total snoozefest. No crazy tea bagger signs. No yelling and screaming inside. About every other question was in support of health insurance reform. Outside, though, there were a handful of angry anti-reformers. So, reporters bored with the event inside began to wander outside looking for a story. On the local evening news, they showed clips of the shouting and yelling outside. Instead of looking for the real story, reporters across America are looking for ways to turn the real story into a better, more sensational tale.
Follow Dawn Teo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dawnteo
Miles J. Zaremski: The Moral Imperative: Health Care as an American Right
However we look at health care, one thing is certain: health care is universal to each and every human being in this country, regardless of power, position, gender, race or ethnicity.
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It is about time. We are at a place in our country where the media has ceased to report the news, they make it.
No suprise here: Big money corporations control the media, so the media shows what big money corporations want. There is no independent media anymore, MSN is a joke and they are destroying this country.
I disagree strongly with the contention that the Tea Parties are getting a disproportionate share of of the media attention.
Every opinion poll shows that Obama's approval rate is sagging, and that opposition to the proposed health care reform bill is growing. Considering the numbers it just isn't logical that Obamacare supporters are the majority of the protesters out there.
Huff posters and Obamites can rant all they want about Tea Parties and reactionaries but it won't change the fact that Obama has totally blown his chance to change our system. Complaining about biased news coverage just isn't going to work because everyone knows that the mainstream media is in the tank for Obama. Everyone that has been to a Tea Party knows that the numbers are swelling because the people have had it with Obama and his failures.
You guys are fighting a losing battle. I wish that instead of spending money on bus tours and futile marketing campaigns the Democrats would spend more time coming up with reform that makes sense. Blaming Tea Parties for your failures isn't going to save Obamacare.
The press showing only anti reformers sure gives the impression of that huh , but please quote the sources of these polls you claim that show that opposition is growing . Obamas numbers are dropping because he is dealing with the GnoP who are weakening a bill they still wont vote for . Obama would regain a lot of support if he kicked the republicans to the curb and laid down the law to the "blue dogs" and strongly suported the public option . As usual a republican draws the wrong conclusion from the polls. Last night i wrote the head of the democratic party in my state to tell her that she needed to be looking for a challenger for one of our Senators that is obstructing the public option , because i will stay home when he runs for re-election . He's voting for the insurance company's and not for the people who elected him . Come time for his re-election he can try to get re-elected on votes from only the insurance co employees
I have participated in several pro-reform rallies and, each time, the press devotes most of their attention to the very few, rabid, anti-reformers in attendance. While the need for sensationalism is, no doubt, a strong motivation, it must not be forgotten that the media in the US are part of the vast corporatocracy and they must, just as on FOX noise, follow the mandates of their masters. To expect anything else would be naive. One of the greatest problems, if not the greatest, facing the nation is a press and media that no longer has any journalistic responsibility. The likes of Morrow, Cronkite, etc. are gone. We have infotainers and pitchmen. Even public radio is succumbing. When the reactionaries were able to throw out the fairness doctrine for broadcasting, the nation was doomed. The incessant lies, propaganda and one-sided rhetoric for the last three decades have taken their toll and it is probably irreversible. An uninformed, ignorant and thoughtless electorate is a sure prescription for failed democracy.
Boston "Health Care Can't Wait" Rally--Sept. 7
Time: Monday, September 7 from 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Hosts: Health Care for America Now, OFA
Location: Park Square (Boston, MA)
Intersection of Columbus Ave. and Arlington St.
http://hea
http://my.
They have to scare up a story since most newspapers are going out of business. They need something. It's going the way of the dinosaur if they don't change their style and format. Let's try truth honesty and ethics for a change.
Listen. Next time you talk to the president make sure he knows WHY reformers want the public option. Requiring people to purchase insurance from the very companies that screwed us time and time again is an insult to working Americans. This is why 7 out of 10 are in favor of a public option. Who wants to reward insurance companies for their decades of neglect and failure?
I tend not to agree that the reason the corporate media is giving so much air time to these loud mouthed right wing mobs is due to mere sensationalism. If this were so, they would have given just as much publicity and credence to anti-war demonstrators during the dark years of the Bush regime. The media is corporate and as such shares their agenda and that of the insurance industry. So long as we fail to acknowledge that the Corporate Media has a corporate agenda that affects their coverage on any issue that pertains to their interests, we'll continue to be blindsided.
The sensationalist are making the news because the news wants you to buy into how good healthcare will be for America. That is universal health care will bail out the auto corporations, steel mills, railroads, air lines, city and state governments and oil companies who want to wash their hands of the cost of health care and let you working at walgreens and 31 flavors and the car wash pay their responsibility. Never forget that these moguls make a billion a QURTER even with health care. Get in line America march to the corporate bailout tune, drones you were born, drones you will remain. sing a song about how many lie to you.
How will a public plan enrich private insurance companies? You're right about one thing though, with a public option, health care will be less of a burden on other corporations. Presumably, this would mean either higher pay for workers and more jobs, or better returns for shareholders. What's so bad about that?
Reporters at our town hall (Rep Jay Inslee, Poulsbo, WA event) refused to accurately count who was for and who was against reform. They claimed it was 50/50 - wrong! The anti's were just louder and clumped together, as instructed by the insurance companies. It's sickening and pathetic, and if it weren't for the financial crisis, I'd have raised Caine to make the break-up of media conglomerates first on the agenda. We seemed doomed to never get meaningful reform so long as MSM controls the airwaves. We're getting misdirected with sensationalist bull, imo, so we don't write/boycott every advertiser everywhere that we find such trash treated as "objective news". Where can we find all the time needed to do that? Start by not reading the bull, just scan for the advertiser there, Google for "contact info", and have a cut/paste email ready to go. My new daily task.
Our airwaves are used against us . Bush did a good job destroying the checks and balances.
Right on! The idealogues, spin doctors and the pollsters command the MSM attention.
What about the rest of us speaking out?
The MSM does our country a disservice by catering to the sensationalist rable rousers, as discredited as they may be. The MSM seems to cater to the fear mongering and scare tactics.
What is needed is a fair debate, where all citizens interests are represented in the debate.
Our government is an imperfect attempt at that, our MSM should not counterdict it.
We may have to more severely regulate the MSM, since it is apparant that they will not behave themselves in this "free market" system of theirs.
Most people I talk to strongly support health care reform, as well as the public options.
Yet, the MSM only reports on the wingnuts. If you listen to them, its the srvival of the loud, crude, racists, and ignorant
37 Trillion Reasons to support Medicare for ALL WHO want it!
HEALTH CARE WILL COST AMERICA $37 TRILLION OVER TEN YEARS?
WE ARE WORRIED ABOUT LESS THAN 2% of THAT BLOCKING REFORM! GIVE ME a BREAK!
At Stake is $37 Trillion over ten years! INSURANCE and Health Care Industries want every DIME they can GET!
Calculations (see table below): ($5+$2.4)/
And we are worried about $600 Billion, less than 2% or 1.6%
PLUS Savings of $1.3 Trillion/10 years from uninsured NOT using Emergency Rooms!
If you want a Public Option then pass HR 676 Medicare for ALL
And ADD a clause that let people OPT OUT to buy Insurance!
100,000,000 people to 306,000,000 people in Medicare can negotiate "FAIR PRICING" for Health Care Services! Stops the FOR-PROFIT GOUGING!
It works in #1 France and it can work here!
Make MAY0 C1inic the N0RM instead of the Exception!
__________
HEALTH CARE COSTS = THE #1 THREAT TO OUR FUTURE!
$2.4Trilli
$3.1Trilli
$4.3Trilli
$5.0Trilli
If they would simply do as you suggest,Medicare for all who want it,I don't think anyone but the wayfar right would object.Wel
I can only hope that we get some coverage on Sunday, Sept, 13th in Washington without anything bad happening. It is my understanding that thousands are showing up, but I am sure there will be the usual contingent of teagaggers.
MARCH WITH US ON SUNDAY, SEPT. 13TH IN SUPPORT OF THE PUBLIC OPTION. THE EVENT IS SCHEDULED FOR 12 NOON,
If you are not able to make the trip to Washington, please check for events in your locality. There are many marches planned in major cities around the country! Please, get up off the couch and give this your support, people! We cannot let this slip through our hands now!
Dawn, this is true of every issue of importance to us now--
"Instead of looking for the real story, reporters across America are looking for ways to turn the real story into a better, more sensational tale."
What do you expect from the corporate owned MSM? The truth?
And while health care is certainly important to every one of us, how does it compare to our complete loss of liberties under the Patriot, Military Commissions, and Homegrown Terrorist acts that give the President the power to suspend the Constitution and all our rights by declaring a national emergency?
How doe health care compare to the ongoing destruction of our economy and the fraudulent ripoff of the People's Treasury by Wall Street and the subsequent loss of job, homes, savings and, yes, health coverage for those people who no longer work or can afford individual insurance?
I think our situation is best summed up in this interview with famed economist and author, Michel Chossudovsky--
http://www
where he outlines how the interconnected government policies, from health to homes, jobs and the wars, are working to destroy our ability to govern this country. I've been without health insurance and it is a bad thing. But being without the freedoms that so many have fought to protect would be worse.
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