Tuesday morning on WNYC's "The Takeaway", they allowed a genuine "ringer" to make a flagrantly inflammatory case against health care reform. Host John Hockenberry presented a conversation with two people who were happy with their health coverage, one of whom was Lori Roman, described as "a 46-year-old non-profit executive and political conservative from Annapolis, Maryland." In fact, she is an activist against health care reform, as even a quick check on a link provided on the "Takeaway" website (although not in the audio), would have shown.
Mr. Hockenberry and "The Takeaway" failed to provide even minimal information on this person to allow the audience to understand that they were listening to an activist against health reform, not simply a person with insurance who was happy with her coverage. Instead, they allowed her to make a misleading argument that government involvement would impair the private coverage she enjoys.
[Note - an earlier version of the diary connected this show to NPR. While they identify their co-producer WNYC as an NPR station, technically it's not an NPR program. However, it's still public radio, from a flagship public radio station.]
Now, I'm sure that lots of "ordinary people" who are interviewed on the radio probably have more than a passing interest in whatever topic they're discussing. Also, there wouldn't be anything wrong with presenting an interview with a health care reform opponent, if the audience is given enough background information and the interview is conducted as one with an advocate for a point of view. However, this "Takeaway" segment was part of a series of "roundtables" on the topic of health reform, which they describe as follows -
We've hosted roundtable discussions about the pros and cons of health care reform, and talked to people who don't have health insurance, and those who do. For today, we're talking to people who not only have health insurance, but are pleased with what they have.
So the description of the participants in the discussion was that they were there because they were "pleased with what they have" in the way of health insurance. You can listen to the segment at the link above, if you wish.
For her part, Ms. Roman described how her son had been seriously ill with a tumor in his leg, and how her health insurance coverage allowed her to get a top orthopedic oncologist in immediately to restore her son to health. So far, so good. But I became suspicious when I heard her launch into her anecdotal argument about "friends in Great Britain" and elsewhere, who she says told her that in their countries, under their systems, her son would probably have lost his leg. She argues that she had chooice, no government bureaucrats involved, and no rationing of car, which is what she would expect with government involvement in health care. Mr. Hockenberry just lets this all come out, without any sort of probing questions.
The question that Mr. Hockenberry does ask is, since Medicare already exists as a government health care program, that didn't keep her from having the coverage that she liked. Ms. Roman uses that to launch into a new argument, that the death of her father was due to medicare bureaucracy. She's not specific about the details, just that he was sent home from the hospital with an infection, and died a few weeks later from that infection. Again, no questioning on this from Mr. Hockenberry, as if his job was simply to allow one ordinary person give her personal perspective on the topic. Instead, he just says, "That's a broad range of experiences", and turns to ask for a response to Ms. Roman's story from the other "satisfied insurance policyholder" (who thinks that just because he has good coverage, that doesn't mean that the government shouldn't help others).
I find it hard to believe that Mr. Hockenberry could have been so ill-prepared as to frame a question to Ms. Roman about Medicare. Her "government health care killed my father" story is on the "Regular Folks United" web site that is associated with her name in web searches, and for which the "Takeaway" website provided a link. Not only that, but she has been appearing regularly on Fox News and right-wing radio programs, and in other forums, making this same claim. If you read her article, it starts out arguing that the medical professionals she was dealing with wanted her to end treatment for her father and let him die - it's her version of "death panels" and the "death book". Then, she moves on to a claim that her father shouldn't have been discharged from the hospital before his infection was treated further and his temperature went down. She claims that the discharge was due to his temperature not meeting a Medicare guideline for continued hospitalization; he died a few weeks later. That's the basis for her claim that government bureaucracy killed her father.
Do I know if her claim is valid? No, I don't, but I certainly didn't get any help in understanding it from the "Takeaway" program allowing her to make her assertions unchallenged. I don't know if the host, Mr. Hockenberry, was woefully unprepared, or just didn't care that he was presenting a "ringer", with an inflammatory story to back her (still unsupported) claim.
By the way, even a cursory review of her background shows why she came on the radio to make her claims. Her online professional profile indicates that until 2008 she was the executive director of the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of state legislators which has stridently opposed what it calls the "federal takeover of health care". As for her current position, while it was correct for the "Takeaway" to describe her as an executive at a non-profit (the Salt Institute, which appears to be an initiative of the salt industry to combat some "anti-salt" bias), listeners were not informed that she is also the founder and President of Libertas Global Partners, which describes itself as follows:
In the areas of issues management and public affairs, Libertas brings extensive experience in:
Building and leveraging third party relationships
Building coalitions and strategic partnerships
Developing grassroots and grasstops support
Developing creative strategies for shifting public opinion
Branding and message development
Strategic communication (op eds, letters to the editor, speeches, radio)
In other words, going on the radio to advocate for clients' causes is her job! That little detail might have been of use to a listener assessing her claims. By the way, although the other member of the panel, a teacher, had to pay towards his health insurance, when Ms. Roman was asked she replied that her "employer" paid all her health costs. Do you think that was the "Salt Institute", or her consulting/advocacy company?
The bottom line is simply this. The health care debate is a complex and contentious issue. We are ill-served by news organizations which make it easy for an "astroturfer" like Ms. Roman to masquerade as just an ordinary person with an opinion, when she clearly is a professional, paid advocate who will resort to outrageous claims to oppose meaningful health care reform.