ABC News « Healthcare Horserace

Lone defender of the press: Jake Tapper

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

The Administration in power, with party control of both houses of Congress and a newly-minted supreme court justice on the bench has taken aim at one of the most prominent news organizations charged with the so-called “fourth estate” watchdog function over government.

So obviously, the other news organizations, network, cable, radio and the newly-minted blogosphere have circled the wagons, cried “censorship!” and defended their Foxy brethren and Susteren.

No?

“A White House attempt to delegitimize Fox News – which in past times would have drawn howls of censorship from the press corps – has instead been greeted by a collective shrug, reports the non-partisan Politico.

“We’re doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible,” a White House official told POLITICO, noting how the recent ACORN scandal story started because Fox covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.”

Not because a major nation-wide organization receiving hundreds of millions in tax dollars didn’t blink at supporting a purportedly depraved criminal enterprise bent on child prostitution and white slavery.

Politico continues with an analysis of Fox News’ legitimacy:

Fox denies its news coverage is slanted, and even White House aides say the network’s top correspondent there, Major Garrett, is a straight shooter. But in its non-news hours, Fox mixes in a steady diet of criticism of President Barack Obama by its prominent conservative commentators Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. It’s a formula that works for Fox, with the highest ratings in cable news.

Others say the attacks only strengthen Fox.

“This is an effort in effect to quarantine Fox News and to discourage other media outlets from picking up on stories that originate here,” Fox Washington Bureau Chief Brit Hume said on “The O’Reilly Factor.” “My guess is it won’t work….Look at Glenn Beck, he’s having a field day with this.”

At least one prominent Washington journalist publicly embraced the White House’s anti-Fox crusade, Politico reports.

“By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations,” former Slate editor Jacob Weisberg wrote in Newsweek. “Respectable journalists—I’m talking to you Mara Liasson—should stop appearing on its programs.”

Liasson, a National Public Radio reporter who is a regular on Fox News’s “Special Report,” did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

On the other hand, the lone voice fighting for the press seems to be ABC’s Jake Tapper.

“It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization,” Tapper confronted White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs. “Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one.”

MediaMatters.org reported that Tapper seemed “completely baffled and quite insulted” by the administration’s stance toward Fox in Jake Tapper can’t figure out how Fox News is different from ABC News?

Of course, Media Matters is more interested in tearing down Conservative outlets like Fox. But what Eric Boehlert seems not to notice is Tapper’s lone stand against the Administration is focused more on who gets to define who is and isn’t a news outlet - a fundamental 1st amendment issue:

Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That’s our opinion.

And the Administration’s opinion is also that other organizations should shun and discredit Fox News because the Administration doesn’t agree with those opinions - as stated recently by senior advisor David Axelrod and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Tags: ABC News, Fox News, Jake Tapper, MediaMatters, Politico
Posted in Eye on the Media | Start the Discussion

Young Adults Face Disillusionment with ObamaCare

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Originated from Statehousecall.org

By Greg Scandlen

Oddly, the key population to be hit with the effect of mandatory coverage are young adults, which are also the biggest supporters of Obama and health reform generally. The recent Census Bureau survey notes that 28.6% of young adults from 18 to 24 years old are uninsured, as are 26.5% of those from 25 to 34. That is double the rate of those of age 45 to 64.

Many of these people are in very good health, so don’t feel a strong need for coverage, but in the proposals before Congress, they will not be allowed to benefit from their good health and will pay the same premium as people who are very sick.

These young people often have other priorities for their money. They are looking for a mate or starting a family. They are setting up their household from scratch and need to buy furniture, or save for the down payment on their first house. They are getting rid of the beat-up Toyota they used in college and buying a decent car to get to their new jobs. They are buying clothing that is suitable for the workplace.

They are also more supportive of ObamaCare than any other age group. The Washington Post reports, “According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll last week, young adults are more optimistic about the outcome of health-care reform than those age 30 and older, but they are evenly divided on the cost implications, with 32 percent expecting their costs to decline and 27 percent expecting an increase. About 52 percent of young adults support the idea of the individual mandate, about the same proportion as in other age groups. But in terms of the overall package, the under-30 group broadly supports the Democratic effort, with 60 percent favoring the proposed reforms vs. 42 percent among older adults.”

Man, if this thing passes, these folks are in for a rude awakening. But, I guess growing up involves a whole series of disillusionments. This will be just one of many for the new generation.

Tags: ABC News, Democratic, individual mandate, Insurance Regulation, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington Post
Posted in Policy Alternative | Start the Discussion

Where does John McCain stand on health care reform?

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

Thursday afternoon, John McCain sent out a campaign e-mail urging supporters to sign a petition against government-run health care reform.

Last night, during his speech to a joint session of Congress and the nation, President Obama outlined his new proposal for health care reform. While I respect the President’s point of view, and hope for an eventual compromise, I believe his proposal amounts to an egregiously expensive and expansive form of government-run health care.

McCain, who is in no danger of losing his Senate seat according to polling numbers, used the e-mail to position himself against big government and vowed to stand against “health care reform that adds to the out-of-control spending spree the Democrats in Congress have gone on this year.”

But, does that mean McCain is a solid “no” on Democrat health care reform? Well, he is a definite “no” on any plan that includes a public option.

Listening to President Obama’s address on health care Wednesday night, however, certainly makes it appear as if McCain’s vote is still up for grabs. The President mentioned McCain by name twice in his speech - even giving the Arizona senator unwanted credit for one of Obama’s many talking points in support of a public option.

In the meantime, for those Americans who can’t get insurance today because they have pre-existing medical conditions, we will immediately offer low-cost coverage that will protect you against financial ruin if you become seriously ill. This was a good idea when Senator John McCain proposed it in the campaign, it’s a good idea now, and we should embrace it.

Obama went on in his speech to hold the partisan carrot of tort reform out as a potential compromise with Republicans.

Finally, many in this chamber – particularly on the Republican side of the aisle – have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care. I don’t believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I am proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these issues. It’s a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today.

While hardly viewed as a serious promise by many conservatives, the prospect of tort reform could very well position the self-proclaimed Maverick of the Senate as one of the key votes to watch in a post-public option world where even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems willing to compromise on what was a deal-breaker only a week ago to get a reform bill passed this year.

I would never go into negotiations and say something is non-negotiable. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.)

In a recent interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, McCain acknowledged that dropping the public option and adding in tort reform could bring Republicans - including his own - votes to health care reform.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Would you agree to the kind of insurance reforms the president is talking about, that you can’t be denied health insurance for a pre-existing condition, you can’t lose it if you get sick?

MCCAIN: You can’t be denied it, and certainly, if you have it, you shouldn’t have to lose it. But under the president’s plan, you would have to lose it, in my view, because of the government option. I believe that one of the fundamentals for any agreement would be that the president abandon the government option. That may be hard…

STEPHANOPOULOS: No pun intended.

MCCAIN: Yes, excuse me, the public option. I think he’d have to abandon the public option and that I think is what a lot of Americans now are concerned about.

STEPHANOPOULOS: If he does you’re willing to sit down and talk about insurance reforms and agree to that?

MCCAIN: I think that Republicans are more than agreeable to sit down and talk about various reforms.

The prospect of McCain’s vote - and the bipartisan credibility that would come with having the 2008 Republican presidential candidate on board - may prove too much for the Obama White House to resist as they currently do not have the Democrat votes to pass a health care plan that does not include a public option in the House but currently don’t have the Democrat votes in the Senate to push through a bill that includes the government-run program.

Keep a close eye on Senator McCain and the Senate Finance Committee - who must produce a bill that does not include a public option if McCain and Senate Republicans are going to get behind the reform effort - in the coming weeks to see if his health care reform vote is on the auction block.

Tags: ABC News, Barack Obama, Fox News, George Stephanopoulos, John McCain, medical malpractice, Nancy Pelosi, public-option, Senate Finance Committee, tort reform
Posted in Horserace | Start the Discussion

Are Democrats ready to put tort reform on the table?

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

At a town hall meeting in Maryland last night, Congressman Steny Hoyer - the number two Democrat in the House of Representatives, announced his willingness to consider tort reform as an element of health care reform when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill next week.

“I intend to look at this very seriously and discuss it with my colleagues,” Hoyer said. “We do want to prevent specious suits. I think we can all agree on that.” (From the Baltimore Sun.)

Tort reform would be a major concession by Democrats looking to take health care reform off of life support in an effort to get a bill on the desk of President Obama before the end of 2009. Tort reform has long been considered something of a “third rail” in Democrat politics due to the vast financial support lawyers and law firms have provided to Democrat political candidates over the years. According to the watchdog website CampaignMoney.com, 79% of all political campaign contributions by trial lawyers go to Democrats.

Yet, tort reform is clearly gaining traction as a potential compromise to rally Republican votes in favor of health care reform.

The bipartisan trade-off in a viable health care bill is obvious: Combine universal coverage with malpractice tort reform in health care.

Universal coverage can be obtained in many ways — including the so-called public option. Malpractice tort reform can be something as commonsensical as the establishment of medical courts — similar to bankruptcy or admiralty courts — with special judges to make determinations in cases brought by parties claiming injury. Such a bipartisan outcome would lower health care costs, reduce errors (doctors and nurses often don’t report errors for fear of being sued) and guarantee all Americans adequate health care. (Senator Bill Bradley in an opinion piece in the New York Times.)

Over the weekend, Senator John Kerry - considered by many to be amongst the most liberal United States Senators, acknowledged that tort reform could be part of bipartisan deal to usher through a health care reform deal.

STEPHANOPOULOS: These insurance reforms, you can’t be denied health care if you’re sick. You can’t get thrown out if you’re sick. A lot of Democrats, Republicans say that maybe we should have this individual mandate, to require people to buy insurance, to couple that with reforms.

Bill Bradley points out today, I think it was in The New York Times, that, you know, maybe they should include some malpractice reform as well. Are they — those three things the building blocks of a deal?

HATCH: Yes, they really are. You know, Democrats have been unwilling to take on the personal injury lawyers. And look, there are cases that really deserve huge rewards, huge judgments.

We’ve got to find some way of getting rid of the frivolous cases, and most of them are. Most of them are brought…

KERRY: And that’s doable, most definitely.

(From a transcript of Senators Orrin Hatch and John Kerry on ABC News’ This Week.)

Of the three Democrats, Hoyer’s admission may be the most telling as he controls the scheduling of legislation for floor debate in the House of Representatives as any inclusion of tort reform in health care reform legislation would likely face major opposition within his own party.

Interestingly, this potential compromise might cost Democrats more in campaign contributions than votes. According to a June Rasmussen Poll, nearly half (48%) of Americans believe it is “too easy to sue a doctor for medical malpractice” and 44% of Americans believe “the federal government should cap the amount of money a jury can award a defendant in a medical malpractice lawsuit” with nearly 20% of Americans undecided on the issue.

Tags: ABC News, Baltimore Sun, Bill Bradley, CampaignMoney.com, John Kerry, lawyers, New York Times, Orrin Hatch, Rasmussen poll, Steny Hoyer, This Week, tort reform
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Twisting the news for a racial narrative

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

MSNBC blatantly cropped a shot of a black man carrying an AR-15 assault rifle outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars town hall meeting with the president in Phoenix, Ariz. to avoid showing any skin color.

Then white host Contessa Brewer abuses the footage to create a racial narrative. “Here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists or their legs.”

This is followed with a token black anchor who can “legitimately” wax on about racism because of his skin color. “It is real that there is tremendous anger in this country … anger about a black person becoming president.”

He then invokes assasination attempts by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Mark Hinckley.

On a side note, MSNBC also mischaracterizes the protesters as a “pro-health care reform” group.

ABC News Channel 15 in Arizona showed the full-length shot, and even interviewed the well-armed black man, who refused to give his name but definitely opposed reform.

Even so, ABC’s Nicole Beyer points out “You have to remember, this is perfectly legal for him to have this gun out in public for everyone to see.”

The implication is we should change the laws so right-wing gun nuts have to hide in a dark closet to caress their implements of destruction.

CNN shows the full-length clip as well, and notes that Secret Service and local police officers had created a loose cordon around the individual.

Hot Air’s Allahpundit puts the deception into context:

Never will you see a starker example of MSNBC getting away with the sort of deception for which Fox News would be pilloried, especially in the context of race.

Blogger Moe Lane argues that stirring the pot like this is more likely to endanger the president, as tensions already run high this August.

This was an insanely stupid move on MSNBC’s part - and one that was dangerous to the safety of the President of the United States of America, not to mention his security staff. I am appalled that a supposedly reputable news agency would do this.

Tags: ABC News, Allahpundit, AR-15, CNN, Contessa Brewer, Hot Air, Moe Lane, MSNBC, Nicole Beyer
Posted in Eye on the Media | Start the Discussion

The perfect storm: Health care reform town hall riots

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Nate Beeler - The Washington Examiner

Are we as a nation really ready to throw elbows over health care reform?

Take a media desperate for news, activists on both sides coached from confrontational playbooks, and an issue too close to call, and you have the perfect recipe for what might become known as the month of the town hall riots.

So far, the media has eaten up the story line that mobs of right wing-nuts are being bussed in by corporate interests to emulate grass roots opposition to health care reform.

The Hill’s Mike Soraghan exemplified the unverified claim that opposition demonstrators have been somehow funded by corporate and conservative interests.

The combined effort comes after numerous Democratic lawmakers across the country have been shouted down at town hall meetings by protesters, some of whom are getting help from conservative and business groups.

Soraghan, like many reporters, offers no proof, but his contention has quickly become the media line for the first half of August.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer went so far as to call the protests “un-American” in a USA Today Op-Ed piece today.

“Americans have been waiting for nearly a century for quality, affordable health care,” the pair claim. In their view, the opposition just wants to drown out “those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion.”

Their attack on the democratic process caused the White House to distance the administration from that characterization of the opposition, according to ABC News‘ Jake Tapper.

“I think there’s actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America,” administration spokesman Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One.

Meanwhile, the right has tried to make hay over falling support of government run health care.

Rasmussen reports Obama’s “good or excellent” rating as a leader has fallen to 45 percent, down 19 points from his inauguration in January.

Conservative blog Stop the ACLU jumped on the numbers, declaring “Rasmussen must be Unamarican too.”

And polls have shown a similar slip in support for a public health care option, down to just under 50 percent, depending on which poll you read. Rasmussen has support for a single-payer system (slightly to the left of ‘public option’ on the socialism scale) at 32 percent, opposition at 57 points.

Tags: ABC News, health care, Jake Tapper, Mike Soraghan, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, The Hill, Town hall, USA Today
Posted in Eye on the Media | 1 Comment »

Who’s Calling Whom an Unruly Mob?

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Protesters, whether bussed in by GOP operatives or natural, grass-roots political speech, are making good video footage this August - as well as hot water for legislators going home for an earful on health care reform

But watch who’s activism you call “manufactured” or “griping and complaining,” especially if you happen to be the President of the U.S.

If you’ve missed the highlights here are some members of Congress getting heckled on YouTube:

Video poster dumpdoggett adds helpful subtitles:
There’s no pushing.
There’s no shoving.
They’re shouting because they’re being ignored.

Doggett told Chris Willis Jenny Hoff of ABC affiliate KXAN protesters have been following him. “Most of the people were there with their photographs of me, my name on a tombstone, not to have a dialog, but to make a drown out any voice but theirs. … Not a grass roots effort, but organized by the Republicans - people drove more than an hour and a half to attend.”

But let’s look at the reaction in the media. So far much has been made of a memo purporting to teach people how to disrupt a much larger audience and the insinuation that these protesters are somehow less authentic for being organized:

“Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) isn’t giving an inch–and he’s using the angry town hall disruptions as cover,” writes Brian Beutler in Talking Points Memo.

“Enzi–who has played a key role in weakening Democrats’ health reform proposal, and whose support for the final product is far from guaranteed–said Democrats are in for ’some nasty, nasty town meetings,’ implying that the public disruptions are a symptom of liberal over reach, not of conservative rabble rousing.”

San Fransisco Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli buys the line that organized protests are somehow artificial.

They’re organized in part by conservative think tanks like FreedomWorks, which offers tips on how to disrupt a meeting (”Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early,” says one) and helped in some cases by anti-tax “Tea Party” sympathizers.

Garofoli goes on, quoting Stanford prof Morris Fiorina, “This is all sound and fury, designed to get the attention of the media, which it has been.”

The Associated Press gave a particularly personal portrait of two congressmen’s reactions:

At one point, U.S. Rep. Mike Ross sat with his head in his hands while the crowd shouted. He and fellow Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder told audience members at a forum at Arkansas Children’s Hospital that they wouldn’t support a completely government-run, single-payer health insurance plan.

“But that’s what Obama wants!” an audience member shouted, leading to more heckling.

Fox News’s Alice Stewart refers to the protesters as “a growing number of Americans who want to slow down and take part in the health care debate.”

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion today pointed to the “shock on the faces of Congressmen who’ve faced the grillings back home. And really, their shock is the first thing you see in the videos.”

They had no idea how people were feeling. Their 2008 win left them thinking an election that had been shaped by anti-Bush, anti-Republican, and pro-change feeling was really a mandate without context; they thought that in the middle of a historic recession featuring horrific deficits, they could assume support for the invention of a huge new entitlement carrying huge new costs.

While we have yet to see how far the mashed potatoes will fly in this food-fight spectacle, it’s clear both sides are reaching for the dirt - and there’s no better dirt than a Nazi reference.

Town hall audiences and conservative bloggers protesting a Democratic-sponsored bill on health care reform have used the disturbing imagery to compare the plan championed by President Obama to how the Nazis treated prisoners in concentration camps.

Supporters have turned around and suggested the angry “mobs” are reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s blind followers.

“They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care,” Nancy Pelosi told Fox News.

Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, called such remarks evidence that Democrats are “desperate to climb their way out of message quicksand.”

“Here’s some free advice for the Democrats: When you are attacking the voters, you are losing,” he said. “Conjuring up ‘villains’ and making elitist remarks about middle-class Americans isn’t a strategy, it’s a prayer.”

Pelosi’s words were fueled by the leak of a Right Principles memo advising people exactly how to “pack the hall” and rattle their congressperson.

Liberals and reform advocates have been using the memo as evidence that the backlash in town halls across the country is “manufactured or orchestrated.”

Tags: ABC News, Associated Press, Fox News, Joe Garofoli, Keith Ellisobn, Lloyd Doggett, Nazi, San Francisco Chronicle, steve driehaus, Talking Points Memo, Town hall
Posted in Eye on the Media, Miscellaneous | Start the Discussion

Patient-Physician Relationship Strangely Absent from Debate

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

In the video embedded below, Dr. C.L. Gray, a practicing Board certified internal medicine physician out of western North Carolina who runs the advocacy group Physicians for Reform, discusses the changes that would be implemented under President Obama’s health care reform legislation and the comparisons this plan draws to the Oregon Health Plan.

Specifically, he tells the story of an Oregon woman named Barbara Wagner who was diagnosed with lung cancer in spring 2008. But rather then provide her with the aggressive treatment of Tarceva, a new chemotherapy, her oncologist recommended, the bureaucrats who ran the Oregon Health Plan, a program created in 1994 to give the state’s working poor access to basic health care while limiting costs by ‘prioritizing care’, instead offered her two alternate options – hospice care or physician assisted suicide, both of which would be paid for by the state. In 1997, Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act, thus legalizing physician assisted suicide so that it could be provided for patients who chose to die without further medical treatment. This combined with the already institutionalized state-run health care system secured the power the government needed to ration health care in order to control its financial risk.

When pressed for a reason why the state of Oregon was withholding treatment Barbara Wagner desperately needed to save her life, both Dr. Walter Shaffer, spokesman for Oregon’s Division of Medical Assistance Programs, and Dr. Som Saha, chairman of the commission that sets policy for the Oregon Health Plan, echoed nearly identical statements in which they said, “We can’t cover everything for everyone. Taxpayer dollars are limited for publicly funded programs. We try to come up with policies that provide the most good for the most people.” And this is just a state-run health care system with a population of a little over three million people. Imagine what it is going to be like with the federal bureaucracy at the helm and a population a hundred times that of Oregon’s!

Dr. C.L. Gray notes in his video, “What is strangely absent from these discussions is any mention of patient-physician relationship.”

Of course what Dr. Gray is saying is nothing new for those who have paid careful attention to the health care debate. We all remember President Obama’s response to Jane Sturm’s question during the ABC News ObamaCare infomercial – on second thought, based on the ratings it’s not likely – on whether his health care reform plan took into account “the spirit or the joy of life” when treating the elderly:

This isn’t to say that Dr. Gray’s reiteration of this precise point is irrelevant. Quite the opposite. As the race heats up to get anything passed, it is imperative that this story keeps being repeated.

Tags: ABC News, Barbara Wagner, Death with Dignity Act, Dr. C.L. Gray, Dr. Som Saha, Dr. Walter Shaffer, health care, health care reform, healthcare, healthcare reform, Jane Sturm, North Carolina, Obamacare, Oregon, Oregon Health Plan, physician assisted suicide, Physicians for Reform, prioritizing care, ration, rationed care, socialized medicine
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NBC Ditches Obama for ‘Talent’

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

susan-boyle It is probably a clear indication that the political honeymoon is over for the Obama administration when a British woman no one had ever heard of several months ago upstages the President of the United States and forces the White House to adjust their schedule to accommodate her highly anticipated interview. That is precisely what happened when NBC balked at Obama’s request for airtime this Wednesday at 9pm EST that would have forced the network, which is dealing with its own series of economic troubles, to delay the high-rated reality program ‘America’s Got Talent’. This week’s episode was expected to bring in an even wider audience as it was to include an exclusive interview with ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ singing sensation Susan Boyle. The White House blinked and agreed to move up the press conference to the less-watched 8pm EST slot. And so Obama’s bad week just got a little worse.

It was this past Friday, July 17^th, that President Obama requested airtime from the four major basic cable networks. Wednesday’s primetime press conference, the fourth since he assumed the presidency last January, was to be the culminating point in the administration’s calculated campaign-style media blitz in an effort to bolster American support for the president’s healthcare reform plan at a time when according to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll it is seriously waning.

But for the first time Obama encountered resistance from one of the Big Three networks, specifically NBC. This is quite a surprise given that one of subsidiaries, MSNBC, which airs Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, is usually one of his biggest supporters. NBC is suffering from a series of financial setbacks, most of which stem from clear mismanagement and lack of leadership on the part of the higher-ups within the company. As its parent company, GE, struggles to reestablish a solid foothold on Wall Street, NBC has just suffered one of its worst television seasons in years, landing dead last in the prime-time sweeps race this past spring. With Universal Pictures, which NBC acquired not too long ago and whose profits account for twenty percent of NBC’s revenue, hemorrhaging money hand over fist from expensive feature films that fail to recoup their production budgets, the network is doing some serious penny-pinching right now.

Summer is usually a slow time for television networks anyway, but even the rosiest prospects this year are looking rather bleak. Television viewership overall is down lower than usual for this of year and with that less advertisement revenue. And with the current economic crisis already cutting significantly into this specific area of the television networks’ profits, companies like NBC are trying to hold their ground as best they can.

Added to this is the growing concern amongst the major basic cable networks is that President Obama is no longer the draw on television that he use to be. His last primetime press conference on April 29^th pulled in 28.8 millions viewers, down twenty-nine percent from the previous conference on March 24^th and down a rather alarming forty-two percent from his very first one on February 9^th.

Of greater concern for the networks is the fact that, given that the theme of this Wednesday’s press conference will be healthcare, President Obama’s last attempt to talk to the nation on this issue fell flat in the ratings, drawing only 4.7 million viewers. The results were even worse considering that the primetime special lost out to a repeat of CSI: NY.

The White House spun the story, of course, arguing that “in speaking with various media outlets, we found that rescheduling for one hour earlier would help us to arrange for as many Americans as possible to hear directly from the President at the press conference,” which is exactly the opposite of what the move actually did.

Tags: abc, ABC News, America's Got Talent, Barack Obama, Britain's Got Talent, CBS, Fox, GE, Keith Olbermann, NBC, Rachel Maddow, Susan Boyle, Universal Pictures, Washington Post
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Obama Pushes Congress to ‘Move Beyond Politics’ and Pass Healthcare Reform

Monday, July 20th, 2009

r351785565 In a press conference held this morning in Washington, President Obama reiterated his plea to critics of his healthcare reform measure to ‘move beyond politics of the moment’ and pass this bill, citing its ‘urgent’ and ‘indisputable’ need among working-class American families. This most recent request comes on the heels of new polling data suggesting that both the president and his healthcare plan are continuing to lose favor with the American public.

In a roundtable discussion held with pediatric healthcare providers of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington D.C. prior to the press conference, President Obama listened to a wide-range of concerns about the current state of the American healthcare system from physicians, physician’s assistants, and nurses at the nation’s leading children’s hospital. Whether there were any qualms among administrators over the nature and extent of the president’s healthcare reform measure is unclear as this meeting was held behind closed doors.

The roundtable discussion and the press conference after were the first steps in the White House’s calculated campaign-style media blitz in an effort to bolster American support for the president’s healthcare agenda. This includes a prime-time news conference this Wednesday at 8pm EST.

President Obama also used this morning press conference to address comments made by his critics, specifically South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint who remarked that healthcare reform may turn out to be the president’s Waterloo. Though not addressing the senator by name, President Obama remarked, “This isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics/ This about a healthcare system that is breaking America’s families,” businesses, and economy.

Questions remain whether the White House is fighting a losing battle over healthcare reform or that the fairly inexperienced president, only five months into his presidency, is biting off more then he can chew. With the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation to the Supreme Court and the Cap-and-Trade bill yet to be addressed by the Senate, it is growing more likely every day that the healthcare reform measure will not be passed before Congress’s August 7^th recess.

Recent polling data suggests to the Obama administration that time is not on its side and the longer the healthcare reform measure remains in bureaucratic limbo, the more support it stands to lose. Support from American public, both for the president himself and his healthcare reform bill, have hit all-time lows. The president’s recent approval rating ranges from a high of 61% from Gallup to a new low of 50% from Rasmussen, with polls conducted between the 17^th and 19^th of July. The Washington Post/ABC News poll shows public approval for President Obama’s handling of healthcare at 49%, down from 53% in June and 57% in April. More pressing to the administration however is the rise in disapproval for the president’s plan, up from 29% in April to 44% now.

Tags: ABC News, Barack Obama, Children's National Medical Center, Congress, health care, healthcare reform, Senator Jim DeMint, Washington Post, Waterloo
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