WHO has to wait? Obama HAS health insurance. HE doesn't have to wait. It is the citizens who have to wait.
This story informs us that,
After more than a week of tirelessly pressuring Congress to move, Obama may have to settle for a fallback strategy on overhauling health care. The best Democrats may be able to hope for this summer is action by the full House by the end of the month and some sort of agreement on a bipartisan plan in the Senate before lawmakers head home for vacation.
I used the word "inform" loosely, and I know many readers get the joke. This is process gossip, not information.
This is an example of a basic problem of today's insular, childish, gossip-focused news media. Writing about the needs of regular people or articles that inform the citizens are rare, barely even on the radar. Talking to people inside the media, the reaction to a post like this is "what is he even talking about?" The gossip, the process, the confrontation is the concern. Finding an "angle" to drive the corporate concerns of the media owners and the career of the reporter is more often the concern.
Reuters today looks at the problems of rural health care and the result is an informative story that cares about the people they cover. In Healthcare reform seen critical for rural U.S,
One of the most controversial aspects of Obama's reform efforts is a "public option" government-run insurance program that would compete with private insurers and help provide benefits for the uninsured.
A study released on Tuesday by the Center for Rural Affairs argued that rural areas need a public option. People living in rural regions tend to be older. They suffer from more chronic health problems, but have less access to private employer-based insurance because so many are self-employed or work for small businesses.
"Rural people have much to gain from inclusion of a public health insurance plan option in health care reform legislation, possibly more than any other group in the nation," said Jon Bailey, director of analysis at the Center for Rural Affairs.
But many Republicans and some conservative Democrats say including a public option is too costly.
On the subject of health care reform, most Americans probably don't have a good answer to the question. And that, obviously, is a problem for the White House and for Democratic leaders in Congress.
The story starts out as another process story -- that the White House and Dems have a problem explaining to the public why they should want health care reform. But the story does something rare. The story actually contains some of the information that the public is lacking, instead of just saying that the public lacks the information and blaming that on politicians and the government. How often do you see that?
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