“Cut off set for free Universal Health Card” proclaimed the big, bold headline in last Tuesday’s News & Observer. The headline sat atop a full page of text, pictures and a chart touting the wonders of the Universal Health Card.
Readers might be forgiven if they thought this was a page of stories about a low-cost health care program with a limited sign-up window. It offered a “free” card that gives you “affordable care provided by 561,000 doctors, dentists, pharmacists and hospitals.” Accompanying the text was a four-column picture showing a “code blue” team rushing a patient down a hospital corridor.
But this was an ad, not a news story. And the card is not free. You have to pay an $18 “registration fee” to get a 30-day free trial to use the card at doctors’ offices, hospitals and pharmacies. Afterward, you pay $49 a month to continue using the card, a cost that was disclosed near the end of the ad’s text.
The ad did carry an “advertisement” notice at the top of the page, in bold but small type. It made clear that the program is not health insurance, but a discount card that supposedly entitles the bearer to cheap rates from health care providers.
Still, one reader told me the ad “borders on misleading.”
“I just think that it deliberately tries to make folks think that here is a cheap way to get your medical bills paid for when at best what it does is give you an undefined discount on medical services,” said the reader, who didn’t want to be identified because he didn’t want problems from the card company.
I called the toll-free number listed for Universal Health Card to find out which providers locally would honor the card. My doctor’s office in Chapel Hill does not participate, an operator told me, but she said UNC Hospitals does.
Not true, said Karen McCall, vice president for public affairs at UNC Health Care. “UNC is not a participant in this program, and we have given the Universal Health Card and all their provider networks notification that we are not part of their program,” she said.
Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for the state Attorney General’s Office, said the office has gotten several complaints about the Universal Health Card. She said people have been told that their doctors participate in the program and have paid for the card, then found that the doctors do not accept it. Some have dropped their insurance for the card because it’s cheaper.
The program is not illegal, Talley said, but the Attorney General’s Office has issued a tip sheet warning consumers about such plans. “It’s an area where there seems to be some confusion among consumers about what they’re getting into,” she said.
The ad has been running in newspapers around the country this month. Jim McClure, The N&O’s vice president for display advertising, said that he had reviewed the content of the ad and found that “it clearly states what it is and what it is not.”
Maybe technically that’s true, but to me the ad looks misleading and, from my brief research, promises more than it delivers. I’m concerned not only that it gives information to readers that is at best confusing, but also that it undermines the credibility of the newspaper.
The ad caused me to wonder whether the well-publicized revenue declines in the newspaper business have caused the paper to accept advertising that might not appear in flusher times.
No, said McClure. “Our standards do not change based on the revenue climate,” he wrote in an e-mail. “During the recent elections, there was a political candidate who didn’t understand/want to adhere to our policy of requiring ‘Paid Political Advertising’ at the top of the ad. We declined the ad without any further thought.”
Obama surfing
Speaking of politics, some readers are still concerned about The N&O’s attention to our president-elect in the wake of the election. A letter writer last week took the paper to task for selling posters of the “Obama wins” front page: “It is no longer journalism at The N&O, it is marketing stories that will benefit the profitability of a newspaper,” wrote Mike Bawden of Raleigh.
And at a meeting Wednesday of The N&O’s Community Panel — readers who meet with us monthly to critique the paper — Herb Wakeford waved a copy of that poster: “Do you always publish a full-page picture of a newly elected president, or just when you happen to agree with him?”
My response to him: The N&O is riding the wave of the Obama phenomenon, as it does any time a big story captures the readers’ fancy. And that’s OK. The paper sold more posters after UNC won the NCAA basketball championship in 2005. I didn’t hear many complaints then.
Let it be known that Obama hasn’t been all gravy for the paper. After The N&O’s editorial page endorsed Obama in October, more than 200 readers canceled their subscriptions. That’s not a local phenomenon; The Washington Post reports losing 900 subscribers because of its political coverage.
