Mainstream Media Bought Off By Medical-Pharmaceutical Complex
By Peter Brauer
The number one problem facing medical reform is that the mainstream news media has been bought by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
Two days ago I was watching supposedly unbiased State of the Union with John King on CNN. I was very annoyed that he had two republicans (Tom Price and John Barrasso) and one democrat (Eddie Bernice Johnson) on to debate health care reform. The problem is that in the Senate and house the ratio of Republicans to Democrats is basically the exact opposite. John King threw soft balls to the Republicans and hard balls to the one Democrat. He was not allowing the Democrat rebut the poisonous lies being told by the Republicans. The final question, King asked all three was, “can there be a bipartisan solution?” He let Johnson answer first. She said no, then when she was trying to explain why, King interrupted her and moved on to the Republicans. They said yes there can be a bipartisan solution, and when Johnson asked to respond, King said, “we are going to give the final word to Barrasso.”. There you have it, CNN, the second most popular cable news station, is giving the final word to an outmoded, foundering, leaderless, racist Republican party. And here I thought it was part of the liberal media.
The reason is very simple, during the ad break over half of the commercials were for pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies. Imodium, Progressive, and Liberty Medical to be exact. CNN and every major TV news source are being paid for the by the very same industries that stand opposed to reforming health care. And as a result their reporting is completely, insidiously, biased toward defeating the reform. The average American viewer is blind to this, because most people take the news at face value and assume it to be honest. It is not!
I like to watch the evening news when I have time. I noticed a long time ago that nearly all of the commercials were for insurance and medicine. The demographics of the news skews older, and therefore these programs are a good way for drug and insurance companies to peddle their wares. Every single news caster knows what pays the bills is not how many people watch. Of course that helps convince to advertisers shell out money. What matters is the bottom line, which is controlled by the people footing the bill.
Aside from public TV, the American people do not give one cent to fund the mainstream news media. The drug and insurance industries do. CNN, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, ABC, and FOX’s news program’s biggest customers are the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. The people watching at home are not their customers. Instead the viewers are the product that the news stations sell. The mainstream news media sells the eyes, wills, and spending habits of the American people. It is their only product. This is how TV has always been structured. It is this structure that is killing health care reform.
I suspect there have been many behind closed doors discussions directly between the health industries and the news companies. Basically the health industries told them, “if health care is reformed it is going mean we will give you less ad dollars, because we will have less money.” Even if these discussions did not happen, news executives know that drug companies spend 24.4% of their budget on advertising. If health care is reformed and the profit from drugs and treatment go down, the news media will be hurting their most important customers. Everyone on the news floor knows this will threaten their jobs. They know who is writing their pay check, and it is not the American people.
Would a drug dealer send their addict to treatment? Would a psychic send their mark to a psychologist? Would sub-prime lender send their customer to an honest debt counselor? No, no, and no! The news media is not going to hurt their bottom line by helping to take one cent away from the health industries.
If health care reforms fail I have a much simpler and easier way to reduce how much of our GDP goes to health care. Make it illegal for drug and health care companies to advertise on TV. I know, the freedom of speech makes this tricky, but already you cannot advertise cigarettes on TV. The FCC charter enables it to tightly control what is allowed over the airwaves. It can fine a station huge amounts for letting a Jackson nipple corrupt our youth. So why can’t it save our national economy from the crippling and corrupting cost of advertising heath care?
Think of this, the US pharmaceutical industry had revenues of 315 billion last year. They spend 24.4% of their budget on marketing. So if you made marketing drugs illegal, you would save the US consumers 79 billion dollars per year. The private health insurance industry has revenue of 1 trillion dollars per year. It is unclear how much they spend on marketing, but it is certainly a lot. Possibly as much as 150 billion. So if advertising health products was made illegal that would save hundreds of billions of dollars.
If drugs are truly good, why do they even need to be advertised? Personally I am happy to have my doctor not drug pushers tell me what drugs I need. Think of all the needless trips to emergency rooms that will be prevented by the fewer four hour erections, fewer temporary losses of vision, and fewer sleep driving incidents caused by the side effects of unnecessary drugs. I am sick and tired of children being medicated for misbehaving. Kids are supposed to misbehave. I am over people being medicated for restless legs from not exercising enough. I am done with how many products the TV says we need for perfect skin. Life ain’t perfect, and a medication that makes us believe the opposite is truly dangerous.
Since the news media isn’t being honest or serving the will of the American people I have no problem going after their bottom line. If health care reform fails, we will need to limit the ability of the health industry to buy the news media. If we stop this corporate bribery next time we try to reform health care it won’t fail. For now I fear the main stream news media is doing everything in it’s power save the profits of their biggest customers. Turn off the news and find the truth for yourself!
