Maria Bartiromo Is Supposed To Be Objective, Right?
Ezra Klein does everyone a huge favor by reprinting part of the the transcript from a debate (I'm being kind) he watched on MSNBC yesterday between CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo and New York Congressman Anthony Weiner over health care.
Here's the interview.
And here's the transcript:
REP. WEINER: Listen, Carlos talks about Canada. You talk about Europe. Let's talk about the United States of America, Medicare --
MS. BARTIROMO: You have to look at where there are public plans.
REP. WEINER: No. No. The United States of America, 40 percent of all tax dollars go through a public plan. Ask your parent or grandparent, ask your neighbor whether they're satisfied with Medicare. Now, there's a funding problem, but the quality of care is terrific. You get complete choice and go anywhere you want. Don't look at --
MS. BARTIROMO: How come you don't use it? You don't have it. How come you don't have it?
REP. WEINER: Because I'm not 65. I would love it.
MS. BARTIROMO: Yeah, come on
As Ezra pointed out, Weiner is 44 years old and, therefore, not yet eligible for Medicare so Maria comes across as being incredibly uninformed.
My take is something a little different: Maria comes across as being incredibly inarticulate. She may have been trying to say that Weiner, as a member of Congress, has a better health care plan than Medicare. If that's the case, she failed miserably and embarassingly. After all, for a television news anchor, inarticulate trumps uninformed every time.
But the far better question is what was Bartiromo doing debating Rep. Weiner at all. She's not a health care expert and, as an anchor on a financial news channel, she's supposed to be an objective observer who asks questions of others rather than someone with her own opinions.
This obviously sounds incredibly naive. Bartiromo works for CNBC, where Larry Kudlow, who is anything but objective, is also an anchor. In addition, CNBC and MSNBC are both owned by General Electric, and using one to promote the other as this interview did has become a tried and true marketing technique.
But do CNBC and GE really want one of its anchors to become rather than report the news in such a negative and embarassing way as Bartiromo did yesterday? Does CNBC really want it to become that clear that it has stopped reporting on and to Wall Street and now acts as if it instead represents the financial world?
one more thing she misses
Bartiromo also mentions Erbitux in that clip as the "most effective" cancer-fighting drug and one the UK plan won't pay for.
According to the Big Pharma story in today's NYTimes, "Taking Risk for Profit, Industry Seeks Cancer Drugs" (at least, that's the online hed):
"Take Erbitux, developed by ImClone Systems, which costs $10,000 a month. A study in Canada showed that as a last-ditch treatment for colorectal cancer, Erbitux lengthened lives by an average of about one and a half months compared with not treating the cancer at all. Using the price of the drug in the United States and the average length of treatment, the extra cost per patient was about $50,000."
Objective Anchors
I'm trying to think of what anchors on what networks seem objective to me. The most remarkable thing about the Bartiromo piece is that she wasn't interviewing another journalist, which these days passes for news. All opinion all the time must be what viewers want, because it's a lot of what they get. Back to those "House" reruns for me.
Maria Bartiromo is supposed
Maria Bartiromo is supposed to be object.
Screw healthcare reform, take away medicare. Let teabaggers have their freedom to clog up expensive ER beds and get flu and staph infections in waiting room.
Healthcare insecurity in United States and reverse brain drain
Has anyone noticed that our best and brightest are leaving the US?
I know many (especially recent graduates) talented young people who are taking jobs overseas. Unemployment in US is high, and the ones I know are taking jobs in countries where there is a national healthcare plan (and this frees them and their parents from paying thousands of dollars in COBRA payments to keep them on healthcare in the US). In the US they get job offers that don't include healthcare (contract work, temporary work, low paying work), and COBRA payments can easily eat up 25% of their take home pay.
Lack of a national healthcare option is forcing some of our best workers to leave.
In the long term is this good for our economy?
As a general policy don't we want healthcare security for everyone in this country? Isn't it as important as food security?
If we are moving to a knowledge economy, where ideas, information, and analytical ability are what drives profits, then won't the country with the most talented and educated workers win?
If we have policies that force our brightest people overseas, what does that get us?
Most bright people have a pre-existing condition (asthma and allergies seem to go with the territory in genius-land). They are keenly aware of the liability of living with healthcare insecurity in the US, and they are scared of what happens to them if they lose their jobs. There are countries where they can do research AND be assured of healthcare for themselves and their children. They are moving to those places. This is a very mobile population . . . the intelligent elite . . . many speak more than one language, many are multi-cultural, and they move within a tight network that supports foreign workers throughout the world.
In any case, reform must GUARANTEE healthcare for all Americans, without risk of individual bankruptcy. The Democrats or Republicans must propose such a plan (so far I see that only the Dems have this plan -- public option insurance).
That's the bottom line if we want to stem reverse brain drain and keep the US innovation advantage.
I don't care which party comes up with the plan, but somebody has to do it, and do it soon. The best are leaving, and if this reform fails, more will leave the US. Great Britain, Australia and Canada, and Europe all have excellent healthcare security.
Objective
It is hard to be find anyone who is objective on the subject of health care. The opinions on each side are strong and lead to some very heated discussions. casino
Never mind the Left Bank, I only care about health insurance...
"I know many (especially recent graduates) talented young people who are taking jobs overseas."
Oh, I do too, and I worked outside the country for a while as a young man. It's a good experience to have.
But you gotta be kidding if you think there's a large number of young people working overseas primarily for health care benefits. That's just not creditable.
Got any numbers from anywhere supporting that?
Anecdotal, yes
"Got any numbers from anywhere supporting that?"
Nobody collects numbers on this, but I have children in this cohort (and most of my peers have children in this age group), and many took jobs overseas this spring (those that were graduating from college), and healthcare coverage came up in the conversations (cost of COBRA, and advantage (huge savings to the child and parents) of working in a country where they would be covered by a national plan).
Yes, it is a great experience to have (I worked overseas too, and I had automatic national healthcare coverage -- a card that gave me access to healthcare in their system -- in the country where I worked 30 years ago!), and several will stay longer in those countries (last year a friend's child met her prospective husband in Australia, and she won't be coming back -- is now working on her PhD over there in Sydney -- much cheaper to do that too).
Healthcare isn't the only reason people leave (but then again, another friend of mine just got back from San Jose, Costa Rica, where he had major dental work done at a major discount), but it adds to the growing list of reasons to go.