Far too many Americans have no health insurance or are underinsured. And, meanwhile, far too large a percentage of America’s Gross National Product goes toward health care. Our health care system is inadequate– yet it costs too much, threatening the economy.
How do we cover more people yet bring the costs down? That is the problem that all of America, from the president on down, is weighing and debating.
Yet press coverage of the debate has often been lacking. The Project for Excellence in Journalism, for example, found that so far this year 55 percent of coverage of health care has been about the political battles, 16 percent about the protests, and only 8 percent about substantive issues like how the system works now, what will happen if it remains unchanged, and what proposed changes will mean for ordinary people.
To help reporters understand and analyze the debate, The Commonwealth Fund has sponsored a special supplement to the September/October issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. Below is a link to the digital version.
We hope you find it useful,
The editors
