I watched Frontline last night on PBS...see it here:
http://www.pbs.org/...
The program, entitled Obama's Deal, was about the process that the administration engaged in to get HCR done. Now, I knew about the back room deals with big Pharma and the deals given to Ben Nelson of Nebraska and so that was not big news. But what Frontline left out was huge.
Along with the narrative about how the bill was put together pretty much by the insurance industry using Max Baucus, it also went into the resistance movement, primarily the town hall meetings during last summer. What really got me angry was Frontline portrayed these mobs at the town halls as a normal grassroots movement! Not part of the insurance industry's orchestrated efforts to kill HCR. Not astroturf, but real and honest resistance by real folks.
They also portrayed the election of Scott Brown as another indication that the public did not want HCR. Several "experts" were interviewed including Grassley, White House aides, and Karen Ignagni, President and CEO of AHIP. She is the one who worked with Baucus to craft the bill and get rid of the public option and put in mandates to buy insurance.
They ended this piece by saying that President Obama as taken a big risk and put the Democrats in peril because he got a bill passed!
So, I guess Frontline really doesn't do its homework....so much for respected journalism.