The Must-Read Healthcare Stories Of October

Yesterday HuffPost's Eyes and Ears team wrapped up a 10-day examination of reporting on the topic of health care, a project in partnership with NewsTrust. For a full breakdown of our findings, check out NewsTrust's blog.

The Eyes & Ears community (which you can join here) looked at 146 health care stories, 51 of which received a NewsTrust rating--meaning three or more people rated the story.

The following stories received the highest ratings for importance and accuracy:

- More is Less - This American Life / NPR (podcast, 1 hour)
- In Netherlands, Insurers Compete Over Quality of Care - NewsHour / PBS (video)
- Going Out of Business? - FactCheck (News Analysis) A Texas-Sized Health Care Failure - New York Times (Opinion) (see reviews)
- The Lie Machine - Rolling Stone (Special Report)
- "Don't Get Sick": The Truth About GOP Health Plans? - Huffington Post (News Analysis)

I personally recommend the This American Life segment. I'll be tuning in on Sunday for the second half of the two-part series.

The Health Care News Hunt also surfaced a number of articles that set the record straight on somewhat popular misinformation campaigns. The most under reported of these was a 60-second add released by the conservative group Americans for Prosperity.

Among other things, the ad claims that Medicare will go bankrupt in eight years, using this "fact" as an argument against paying for health care reform "with $500 billion in Medicare spending cuts." There is no evidence that Medicare will go bankrupt and Congress has never proposed legislation that would cut Medicare by $500 billion. FactCheck.org does a great job of breaking apart the ad's many false arguments and proving them patently false. It's worth a read.

And of course, there was yesterday's breaking news coverage of the Senate finance Committee's vote on the health care bill where Republican Senator Olympia Snowe broke with her party to vote alongside 13 Democrats.

It might be insider baseball, but the split in reporting on how Democrats secured Snowe's vote shows the extent to which the healthcare reform battle has gone on behind closed doors. You can read the full report on how different outlets covered the vote and the week's entire findings here.

Thank you to everyone from Eyes & Ears who participated and to our partners at NewsTrust, Executive Director Fabrice Florin and editors Derek Hawkins and Kazar Compwala.

Comments

[SteppingRazor]

All other industrialized nations have National Health Care of some type which lowers the cost of exported goods and gives a Raised Standard of Living to all it's citizens.

With no National Health Care we, The USA, are at a disadvantage in the int'l market. Now the 1%ers say, "so what", as they are making money anyway by lowering our compensation to remain competitive. Praise The Randian God Of Selfishness.

The American Peasants in response to this class crisis fight amongst themselves in a selfish fight over table scraps. I am so proud to be an American.

And Christ looked on and cried at what had become of his disciples.

[wblack]

Capitalism has been called a system of greed—yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of.

Capitalism has been called nationalistic—yet it is the only system that banished ethnicity, and made it possible, in the United States, for men of various, formerly antagonistic nationalities to live together in peace.

Capitalism has been called cruel—yet it brought such hope, progress and general good will that the young people of today, who have not seen it, find it hard to believe.

As to pride, dignity, self-confidence, self-esteem—these are characteristics that mark a man for martyrdom in a tribal society and under any social system except capitalism.

[JoanneRM]

We only need her vote for cloture. Her vote yesterday signaled that we have her vote for cloture and no more. That's fine. We need 51 votes to pass this once the Senate and House bills are reconciled. The public option will come from the House bill. Then it's off to the President's desk for a signing ceremony. Social Security and Medicare were passed without any Republican votes. Health care reform will be passed without any Republican votes too. This is why the Democratic Party is the Party of the People, and the Republican Party is not.

[wblack]

Perhaps you should say the People's Party, considering your support of an unethical socialized system which will result in the enslavement an entire class of people. Once you grant this "license to enslave" to government what makes you think you will be able to limit or repeal it? What makes you think you will not be next?

[Viper]

Getting Snowes vote for a plan thats worse than what already exist as impossible asthat might sound is not success!

The reason for Healthcare reform are:
1) Only about 85% are covered. Under this plan maybe 90% will be covered.

2) The cost of health insurance is too much. America cant compete and is losing jobs to countries with lower helathcare costs. Under this plan the cost will go up. People are going to pissed. Repugs will be back in charge.

The plan covers neither of the stated goals. Politically would be a disaster as much as our current system is a disaster for our country. .

All the last 6 months have proven is that the solution which cuts cost in half and covers everyone... single payer was taken off the table,. AMERICA LOST.

Regards

[wblack]

Repugs ... Your arguments might possibly reach a broader audience if you did not stoop to what is in essence a slur no different from any other repugnant racial slur. You really think people of decency are going to join hands with you when your leaders and followers engage in unrestrained hate-speech and would be actual hate crimes were they carried out against a racial culture. Rethink the ethics of your behavior -- and know your words define your character.

Once you've cleaned up your act in this regard then you need to deal with the nasty license to enslave a socialistic system of medical care implies -- I don't know how you can get around that, but one step at a time.

[wblack]

The reason to oppose Socialized Health care:

1) You are being lied to, there is no medical care crisis in America. No American is turned away from required medical care. No American has ever died for lack of insurance, no hospital in America requires that you have insurance in order to receive treatment.

2) The right to self determination is the right to refuse to purchase medical insurance.

3. The right to be free from enslavement by a dehumanized socialistic system overrides any argument supporting such a system.

[keith1958]

With all the discussion of health care and public options, why are the conservatives not asking themselves "what would Jesus do?"

[rf-hawaii]

Who is Jesus?