Jon Margolis, former chief political reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the author of "The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964," lives in northeastern Vermont, where he writes and teaches.

 
As the week began, Time Magazine political sage Mark Halperin offered “5 reasons to bet AGAINST major health care reform passing this year.”
His first four reasons were logical, if debatable—that one sixth of the economy “can’t be remade without genuine bipartisan support;” that universal care will be too expensive; that “the public is not demanding action;” that Democrats won’t want to vote for a tax increase.
Reason five was both more oblique and more interesting: “Most journalists still have health insurance.”
It’s awfully hard to argue with the premise. If anything, “most” understates the case. With few exceptions, journalists, especially the ones covering the health care debate in Washington (meaning the ones who might influence the outcome) are senior employees who work for established firms which offer health benefits. It is not inconceivable that one or two of those reporters are dimwitted enough to opt out of their employer’s health plan. But it isn’t likely, either.
But did Halperin really mean to suggest that just because these folks have insurance they don’t give a hoot about those who don’t? And—worse—that their coverage would reflect their self-interest rather than the public interest, tilting the debate against universal coverage?
Such insolence. So insulting. So unreasonable.
But not, perhaps, entirely incorrect.
Especially if considered (as, it seems, it was intended) as both half-facetious and more-than-half metaphorical. Here “most journalists” is effectively a stand-in for “most people,” who not only have health insurance, but who, according to several public opinion polls, are generally satisfied with what they have.
There’s nothing original about noting that this happy reality is a major political stumbling block in the path of universal coverage. If most people like the coverage they have, they aren’t going to look kindly at any proposal that creates a whole new system, possibly putting their own coverage at risk. That explains why President Barack Obama keeps telling everyone that under his proposal they will be able to keep their present health care plan.
But that’s just…you know…people! Civilians. Journalists hold themselves to a higher standard. They are beholden only to factual accuracy, prudent analysis, empirically testable evidence, and the public interest.
Or not. But maybe Mark Halperin only got it half right. If news coverage endangers universal health care, perhaps it is less because journalists are protecting their own interests than because they have been brought into (or have bought into) the prevailing outlook of modern America: It Can’t Be Done.
This viewpoint transcends both the health care debate and journalism, but recent news coverage of health care provides a good example. It isn’t that the coverage has been bad. But almost all of it focuses on the obstacles, both political and fiscal, blocking the path to universal coverage.
 “Growing worries over budget deficits and government intervention could jeopardize President Barack Obama's proposed healthcare overhaul in Congress as lawmakers bicker over costs and strategies for covering the uninsured,” began a Sunday story out of Washington by Donna Smith of Reuters.
The same day, a Boston Globe story by Lisa Wangsness noted that “even the most battle-tested Democrats on Capitol Hill began to look unnerved last week as they marched deeper into the healthcare debate .”
Neither lead was inaccurate. In fact, the stories as a whole weren’t bad at all. They got the facts right, and no doubt accurately gauged the mood on Capitol Hill. And they certainly were representative examples of the approach taken by almost all recent coverage of the health care dispute, an approach that might be described as a Reverse Johnny Mercer.
Mercer wrote the lyrics (Harold Arlen wrote the tune) urging a more optimistic America (in 1944) to “Accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative, Latch onto the affirmative, Don’t mess with Mister In-between.”
That was when the country was winning a war, thanks in part to an attitude summed up by the motto of the Navy Seabees: “The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.” If the country has a motto today, it might be, “The difficult we’ll try to do later; the impossible we can’t even think about.”
Or maybe that’s just the motto the chattering classes (and that’s us) have semi-officially bestowed on (or imposed upon?) government. Even these days when the private sector hasn’t been winning any gold stars, government-bashing continues to be a national past-time. It also continues to be the actual, working, slogan of one political party.
Raising the question of whether journalists, consciously or not, are helping that party by sharing its mind-set.
Not that journalists should be either Pollyannas or cheer-leaders for the President. For instance, when on Monday afternoon he called the drug industry’s agreement to hold down some prices “a major step forward,” some journalistic skepticism was in order. Modest step forward seemed closer to the mark.
But even those skeptics might have paid the man some heed when he noted the prevailing “certainty that we can not get this done.”  Good reporters avoid certainty. Not to mention that by now you’d think good reporters would have figured out not to underestimate Obama. Sure, all that “yes, we can” stuff (he did it again Monday) can get a little cloying. But--have you noticed?—he makes good on the boast more often than not.
But taking that into consideration might run counter to the prevailing pessimism, to the perverse joy some reporters seem to take in pointing out how unlikely it is that health care—or anything else, for that matter—will  get done. Last week, the Congressional Budget office “scored” the latest Senate Finance Committee’s version of the health care bill, and found that it would cost some $1.6 trillion over 10 years while still leaving millions uncovered.
A legit story, to be sure, and a potential setback for the President and his Democratic allies. But the stories almost gloated in recounting what a huge setback this represented for the forces of universal coverage. In fact, so eager were the reporters to sign the death certificate for health care restructuring, that most stories failed to point out that the Senate bill wasn’t what Obama had in mind. It didn’t, for instance, include the controversial public plan, with its potential to bargain with insurers and providers, potentially saving billions.
Contrast that with the coverage of this past weekend’s New York Times poll showing substantial majorities in favor of comprehensive, universal, health care and the higher taxes and enhanced role for government that it might require. If nothing else, the poll does seem to challenge two of Halperin’s points—that the public “is not demanding action,” and that voting for tax increases would be political suicide for Democrats.
Granted, I am writing this less than 48 hours after the poll was released. Maybe its significance hasn’t sunk in yet. Still, the absence of “this is a game changer in the President’s direction” stories is notable, especially after last week’s “this is a game changer against him” thumb-suckers. It’s almost as though no reporter or columnist wants to be caught suggesting that Obama, Ted Kennedy, and their ilk might actually get what they want, or something close to it.
To be fair, that Reuters Sunday story did note that “Americans strongly support fundamental healthcare changes and a move to create a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll published on Saturday.”
But only to add that “other recent polls show that eye-popping budget deficits… are giving Americans pause about… government intervention in business following the banking and auto industry bailouts.”
Except that the Times poll seemed to indicate that most people thought that government ought to intervene more when it comes to health care.
Maybe reporters are right not to pay too much attention to the poll. After all, the people aren’t going to decide what kind of health care bill passes, if any. Key members of Congress are going to make that decision, primarily, it seems, key members of the Senate.
In theory, senators are going to be influenced by what the voters want. In reality, they may not be, perhaps because they will be more influenced by what certain lobbyists want.
If any reporter is looking for gloom, there’s a story.

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