Progress Now Action

Throughout the process of the Colorado Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform, the two large Denver newspapers have consistently failed to present factual information about the Colorado Health Services Single Payer Proposal -- the one that was most favorably evaluated by the Lewin Group.

Since March of 2007 both The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News have each printed a number of commentaries by 'free-market' health care advocates Brian T. Schwartz and Paul Hsieh, as well as commentaries by Sen. Andy McElhany and ex-Senator Mark Hillman. Only Rep. Claire Levy was granted a commentary in the Post that dissented from the predominant 'free market' view.

At least five commentaries since the Spring of 2007 have been submitted by myself and others about the advantages of the Single Payer proposal, as well as the broken system of third-party multi-payer commercial health insurances. The information has been ignored by the Post and the News. Only out-state papers like the Pueblo Chieftain and some northern Colorado papers, including the Fort Collins Coloradoan and the Northern Colorado Business Report, have consistently printed different perspectives of health care reform, including the Single Payer perspective.

In May 2007 Todd Engdahl, a Post editorial page editor, notified me that he planned to print a commentary/overview that I had written about the Colorado Health Services Single Payer health care reform proposal then being evaluated by the Lewin Group for the 208 Commission for Health Care Reform. Subsequently, Engdahl was one of eight or so reporters and editors 'retired' by the Post. I followed up with Post assistant editorial page editor, Barbara Ellis, who repeatedly assured me the paper would print a piece about the single payer health care proposal. Each time we have sent something to the Post, Ms. Ellis has responded to the effect, "Thank you, we are considering how to present health care reform, and we will be in touch."

In January, before the 208 Commission for Health Care Reform presented their final recommendations to the legislature, a piece was sent to the Post signed by the board president and vice president of Health Care for All Colorado, critiquing the draft recommendations by the 208 Commission, based on a Massachusetts-style mandate for private insurance, and elaborating on advantages of Single Payer insurance. When I followed up with Ms. Ellis in early February, inquiring why no commentary presenting the Single Payer health care proposal has been printed in the past year, I received the following email from her:

"With the governor and his staff about to propose their own health care reform plan, publishing anything by the individual groups involved in submitting proposals to the 208 Commission is taking the story backward instead of forward."

"However, if you or anyone else should have anything to write in response to that plan once it is detailed, feel free to send it to us. I'm sure you can understand that the 208 Commission's report may be rendered moot by the governor's plan, so we're trying to take the story forward. Should the single payer plan still be part of the discussion, we'd value your input."

On February 2, 2008, the Post printed an editorial wrongly stating that, of the five reform proposals, Single Payer universal health care is the 'costliest option,' costing an 'additional $15 billion a year.'

The lack of understanding of the Single Payer proposal by the Post editorial board alone is disturbing, and it is quite understandable why Coloradans who have been so poorly served by local media totally lack understanding about what the 208 Commission has done, and what the proposals would accomplish (or not), let alone the results of the Lewin Group evaluation of the proposals.

Only one proposal evaluated by the Lewin Group, the Colorado Health Services Single Payer Plan, demonstrated the capability of providing comprehensive health coverage for all, and of reducing health care costs. Reported annual health cost savings to the state were $1.4 billion. More than $4 billion additional costs savings were reported for Colorado businesses, families, providers and hospitals. See Lewin Report Single Payer Cost Savings. The $15 billion public funding for Single Payer represents a shift from the current higher rate of private out-of-pocket health care costs (premiums, copays and deductibles, etc) that we all currently pay. In place of these high out-of-pocket private health costs, everyone would pay a progressive tax (the individual and employer tax is the source of $15 billion public funding) that for all except those making over $100,000 a year, would be less than their current out-of-pocket health care expenses.

The Rocky Mountain News exercised their own version of news blackout on the issue of health reform, early on writing an editorial titled "Single Payer Baloney" advising that Single Payer reform be dismissed as unreasonable and unworkable. 

After saying he wanted to present another perspective and repeatedly failing to do so, Rocky Business editor Rob Reuteman informed me in a phone conversation that he was "not going to confuse the readers by printing" my commentary about single payer, calling it "pie in the sky," and insisting that he could not understand where the funding would come from.

Is it any wonder that so many are still in the dark about health care reform in Colorado? We still have not had a honest and open exchange of information surrounding health care reform – when are we going to hear the broader perspective? If the local news media refuse to provide a forum, then who will? It is no wonder that the multi-billion-dollar insurance and pharmaceutical industries continue to write health care policy, as they did with Medicare prescription drug reform, granting themselves billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies and inflated profits to enhance their bottom lines. Simultaneously, commercial insurances game the system to increase their profits by delaying, denying and reneging on claims they should be covering.

One can only assume that the corporations that own the media set the standards of news coverage – selectively influencing what information is and is not made available to readers.