Thursday, April 22, 2010

Frontline Fronts for Corporations, Not the Public

by Margaret Flowers from The Public Record. This article on Frontline, a liberal PBS program in the US, illustrates how a (capitalist) government subsidized TV network acts as a gatekeeper of opinions on the left, and what range of views are acceptable to be considered at all.
The major point of the influence of health-industry dollars on the reform process, which should have been mentioned, is that these dollars were spent in order to restrict the debate and protect industry profits.

The lucrative status quo would have been threatened if single-payer had been openly discussed because a publicly financed national health program can provide high quality universal health care and control health care costs, something that a private-insurance-based system cannot accomplish.

After watching this film, viewers would have no idea that single-payer exists or know that there is a strong movement for it.