FAIR: Censored By ABC, Obama's Longtime Doctor Speaks Out (on single-payer)

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By Don Smith (about the author)

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For OpEdNews: Don Smith - Writer

I got this email from Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting:

*PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY*

The doctor who served as Obama's personal physician for 22 years speaks out about how ABC disinvited him from their healthcare forum two days before the prime-time event where he was planning to ask about single-payer healthcare.

Watch the video and add your name to FAIR's petition demanding that the networks include single-payer in the healthcare debate at:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/592/t/9039/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1993

Many experts see single-payer national health insurance as the most sensible solution to expand coverage to the uninsured and to reduce costs.

This proposal polls well with the public, who preferred it two-to-one over a privatized system in a recent survey (New York Times/CBS, 1/11-15/09). It is also preferred by 59 percent of physicians, according to a recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (4/1/08).

Yet a recent study by FAIR found that of hundreds of stories about health care in major outlets earlier this year, only five stories included the views of advocates of single-payer--none of which appeared on the television networks.

The insurance lobbies and many politicians may not want to talk about single-payer. But that makes it all the more important that the media do.

Please cover single-payer healthcare proposals, and stop silencing their advocates.

Thousands of people have signed onto this petition, including Harvard medical professors Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein and Dr. Quentin Young of Physicians for a National Health Program; Donna Smith of the California Nurses Association; filmmaker Michael Moore; former MSNBC host Phil Donahue and actor Mike Farrell.

Please add your name too and help us spread the word by forwarding widely!

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting

DFA organizer, Democratic Precinct Committee Officer, writer, programmer, and lyricist. My op-ed pieces have appeared in the Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and elsewhere. See http://TruthSite.org for my writing, my musical (more...)

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