MediaWatch: March 1994

Janet Cooke Award: ABC's Strait, Compton, Kast, Gregory, and Burns Tout Benefits of Clinton Health Plan

Good Fawning America

On February 7, ABC's Good Morning America began a week long series "Closeup on Health Care." All five reports touted the desirability of the Clinton plan. None presented conservative alternatives, or even asked whether reform was needed in the first place. For a week of one-sided portrayals of the health care system, ABC earned the March Janet Cooke Award.

Reporter George Strait set the tone on Monday. He looked at two businesses, one for and one against the Clinton plan. Strait cited a truck company owned by the Wilsons, who provide insurance, and "look forward to health care reform, because they say it will lower their overall cost of doing business." Strait recognized that "many entrepreneurs are skeptical," and quoted furniture maker Dale Guilliland, who said: "The price is going to end up being more than anticipated, and that will be passed on to the small businesspeople." Strait ended by dismissing Guilliland: "Dennis Wilson remembers that same kind of fear when the government proposed increases in the minimum wage. He says the sky didn't fall in then, and predicts it won't when health care reform is passed, either."

But a much-cited study of the plan by Lewin-VHI found the insurance savings to all firms currently providing insurance would total just $300 million between 1996 and 2000, if it works exactly as planned. The study also found employer skepticism was justified: employers not currently providing insurance would pay an additional $107.4 billion dollars over the same four year period, and 67 percent of those firms would pay at least $1,000 per year per employee.

On Tuesday, Ann Compton found nothing but support for the Clinton plan among doctors. She declared: "Last year President Clinton complained that paperwork wastes a dime of every health care dollar. His plan's architects would fix that." She quoted three doctors: a member of the White House Health Care Task Force, and two doctors who "like the Clinton promise to manage care and costs the way HMOs do," though "neither one has confidence the proposed plans will go far enough."

Compton ignored the controversies which surround HMOs. In the February 7 New Republic, Elizabeth McCaughey of the Manhattan Institute noted: "In HMOs, the ratio of physicians to members averages 1 to 800, about half the ratio of physicians to the general population. Specialists are particularly hard to see." She added: "Current HMO cost-cutting methods already are drawing criticism from Congress, government investigators and worried doctors. The Clinton bill's premium caps will compel HMOs to use even more stringent methods of limiting care."

As for paperwork, the Lewin-VHI study said administrative savings by providers and insurers will be a scant $1.9 billion in 1998, versus the $60.4 billion cut by spending limits imposed on Medicare and private insurers that year. Contrary to Clinton projections, the Lewin report stated: "Although managed care savings are intended to be the primary source of savings under the Act, the premium caps will...limit the growth in health spending."

On February 9, GMA viewers were given one side of the debate on the problem of the uninsured. Sheilah Kast visited the middle class Moodys, where the husband "does not get health insurance on the job, and can't afford to buy it privately." They were forced to pay out-of-pocket for a child's injury: "Advocates of the President's health care reform proposal say the Moodys are typical, that four out of five uninsured Americans live in families where someone works."

The Moodys are not "typical." Even the March 7 New Republic stated only "about half (52.4 percent) of the uninsured live in families with a full-time, full-year worker." Kast exaggerated the problem by 53 percent.

The Employment Benefits Research Institute determined nearly three-quarters are uninsured for eight months or less, and fewer than three percent are uninsured more than 24 months. Dr. Morgan Reynolds of the Joint Economic Committee calculated that of the 129 million workers in the country, 15 million were without insurance on any day in 1992, or 12 percent. Kast didn't assess the impact on the 85 percent who are insured.

Bettina Gregory addressed the elderly's drug costs on February 10, noting: "The American Association of Retired Persons says at least ten percent of seniors have to choose between buying food and buying drugs. Horror stories abound." Gregory listed the drug coverage offered by Clinton's plan, then added: "Because of these benefits, many seniors' groups heartily endorse health care reform proposals. Some believe the Clinton plan is the best blueprint for health care."

But the liberal AARP hasn't endorsed the Clinton plan, and a February 22 Investor's Business Daily editorial uncovered: "AARP polls show about half its members doubt they'd be better off under the Clinton plan."

In the week's final report, Karen Burnes pointed out that "most large corporations currently pay 90 percent of an employee's medical bills. Under the Clinton plan, they'll only be required to pay 80 percent, leaving people like the Taylors to pick up the extra ten...Should they want greater choice, or greater coverage, the employee will pay more." Quoting three supporters of Clinton and no critics, she also posited: "Under the plan, everyone will be covered: employed, unemployed, and suddenly laid off."

Burnes assumed the Clinton plan would achieve universal coverage. John Merline wrote in the February 22 Investor's Business Daily: "Hawaii [where universal coverage is guaranteed] has an uninsured rate equal to or greater than 16 other states according to the Urban League, and not too far below that of the U.S. as a whole."

Like ABC's reporters, soundbites were heavily skewed, with 12 of 18 (67 percent) supporting the Clinton plan. Four were neutral (22 percent), and only two were skeptical, both from the small businessman in Strait's story.

GMA Washington editorial producer Lynne Adrine told Mediawatch: "There was no pre-set idea going in." Why so many pro-Clinton soundbites? "I think it just worked out that way...I think it would have been a concern on the other hand if we were getting a certain type of response from the calls that we made, in terms of producing the stories, then saying `Oh my goodness, nobody's objecting to the Clinton plan enough,' and then really go out of our way to find more criticisms....You don't want to skew it one way or another."

Only Strait and Burnes mentioned the Clinton plan might have a negative impact, though both brushed aside criticism, citing the greater good. Burnes ended her story: "While some may gain and others lose, it is clear that we are all entering a new era in how we take care of each other."

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