I have a hunch our elected officials in Washington, DC wish they hadn’t taken a vacation this August. As I’m sure you’ve seen at town hall meeting after town hall meeting, congressmen and senators from both parties have gotten an earful about health care reform.
Or least, that’s how it seems. The loudest, most opinionated, most outrageous generally make it onto the television news. They are shouting and pointing their fingers. And quite often, they are making accusations that are 100% false. In the news industry we call that good TV. But, is it good for our democracy? I would argue no.
Instead of creating a healthy environment for debate on this topic, we are in the middle of a junior high school food fight with each side trying to one up the other.
No matter your opinion on health care reform, you’d have to agree that shouting at Senator Warner or Congressman Perriello is not the best way to get your point across. It’s also not the best way for the media to educate the public on this weighty topic.
There are very strong, valid arguments to support reforming our health care system. And there are very legitimate, real arguments for leaving it alone. Unfortunately, we aren’t hearing about either one. In fact, all we are hearing is the person yelling the loudest. It’s like an episode of Big Brother.
Is that what we’ve been reduced to… a reality TV show? It sure seems so.
Posted by Jay Warren at 09:37 PM. Filed under: main •
(0) Comments • Permalink
