The national debate over health care has produced lots of sound and considerable fury, but almost no consensus. There are, however, a couple of seemingly conflicting observations that we can make with confidence:
1. Nearly everyone has formed an opinion – often a strong opinion – about the health care proposals now under consideration by our legislators.
2. Hardly anyone has actually read all 1,000-plus pages of the most discussed version, H.R. 3200, and fewer still have a true understanding of what it says, what it doesn’t say, and what it could mean for the way we live.
The good news is that affirmation is immediately available for anyone. You don’t have to look hard to find support from someone who will confirm whatever conceived or preconceived notions you might have. You don’t need me to tell you where: Fox News or MSNBC; Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann; Sarah Palin or Nancy Pelosi; Ann Coulter or Paul Krugman. And on and on.
The bad news is that if you are seeking simple, clear, unvarnished facts, you are out of luck. And so is whatever poor soul who is attempting to provide them.
Why?
Lots of reasons: First, there is no single bill to explain or debate. There’s the House bill, H.R. 3200. There are at least two alternate bills working their way through the Senate. Whatever emerges from those will be subject to a conference committee that may or may not produce a law that bears resemblance to any of them.
All the bills are marked by hundreds of pages of hurried, imprecise language that have not all been digested even by the people who will be voting on them. And, if all this does produce a new health care reform law, it will be subject to interpretation by the various federal agencies assigned to enforce it. Then, chances are, it will be on to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, readers expect their newspaper to tell them what’s going on. No paper is going to be able to examine and explain every nuance on every page of every bill, but The Plain Dealer has bravely assigned itself the role of myth-buster.
Last Sunday, and all this week, Washington Bureau Chief Steve Koff and others have been picking off the most contentious issues – “death panels,” abortion, illegal immigrants, Medicare, potential cost – and doing their best to provide readers with stories about what is in the bills, what is not, and what is likely to be the result. If you missed any, you can find them at cleveland.com/medical.
So far, I think they’ve been doing pretty well with their impossible task, because anyone who has carefully read their reporting over the past week has a better understanding of the most controversial and divisive aspects of the debate.
But the key there is “carefully read,” because the words in the stories are carefully chosen. Almost every answer could be summed up “maybe.” Almost every conclusion comes with a caveat. Almost every story makes sure to inform readers that the truth of what is being examined there depends on which bill one is talking about – including, possibly, bills that haven’t even been written yet.
Occasionally the stories were less equivocal. One reader took passionate exception to a Koff story that said, “Some people say that the House health-care overhaul bill would require counseling sessions where senior citizens would be advised on how to end their lives. Would it?”
“No,” Koff wrote.
“Don’t give me his opinion,” the reader fumed. “Tell me what it says in the bill.”
To write a flat “no” or “yes” on any question involving the health care debate is to tread treacherous ground. But Koff can’t quote what a bill doesn’t say. And if he tried to quote from what the bill does say about end-of-life counseling, the quote would go on for paragraph after dense paragraph until your eyes cross. So he paraphrased, and quoted sources who explained what is there at this point and what isn’t.
Where our coverage has been less than perfect, it’s because we haven’t been as precise as we might be. The Page One headline on last Tuesday’s story about the bill’s effect on Medicare said, “Medicare patients likely would benefit from reform.”
That was mostly true, but the story also noted several areas where Medicare patients might be worse off under H.R. 3200. The headline should have said “some,” or “most.”
And we need to be more careful in identifying the sources of some of the studies that have been cited. Last Sunday’s story called the liberal organization Families USA simply an “advocacy group.” And a story Thursday referred to the generally conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, as simply “nonpartisan.” In stories like these, it’s important that readers know what biases these organizations bring to the debate.
Seldom has precision been more important than with stories about this subject – precision both in the reporting and in the reading of them.
