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red states rule
08-09-2007, 06:38 AM
The liberal media is pushing the Dems agenda on a nightly basis. Now they picked up on the sob story of the retired union guy how is asking the government (i.e you the taxpayer) to pay for his and his families health care


Universal Health Care Backer's 'Moment of Truth' Championed by CBS Evening News
By Brent Baker | August 8, 2007 - 21:15 ET
Tremendously exaggerating the number of Americans who lack access to health insurance, CBS on Wednesday night trumpeted the cause of an AFL-CIO member who denounced the United States for not providing health insurance coverage for his wife and endorsed the John Edwards plan for universal health care. Anchor Katie Couric previewed the upcoming story: “Presidential candidates hear a dramatic plea for help from one of the millions of Americans with no health insurance and no way to pay for it.” Setting up the tribute to the retiree, Couric asserted that “45 million Americans have no coverage. That includes more than 13 million between the ages of 19 and 29. Many of them don't get coverage from their jobs, and cannot afford to buy it on their own.” Of course, many can afford it and in that age range feel comfortable without insurance. In fact, 17 million of the uninsured earn more than $50,000. Removing those, plus people who are not U.S. citizens, leaves fewer than ten million chronically uninsured.

Reporter Michelle Miller began her CBS Evening News piece by championing how “every once in a while, a moment of truth breaks through a political campaign event. That happened last night when a 60-year-old retired steel worker from Union Township, Indiana, asked a question.” Viewers then saw a clip of Steve Skvara from the AFL-CIO debate shown Tuesday night on MSNBC: “Every day of my life, I sit at the kitchen table across from the woman who devoted 36 years of her life to my family, and I can't afford to pay for her health care. What's wrong with America? And what will you do to change it?” Miller explained that “Skvara says he got the answer he was looking for from his favorite candidate, John Edwards,” who proclaimed: “And we ought to have universal health care in this country!” Skvara agreed: “We need a national health care plan.” Miller wondered: “Now the question is whether a moment in a debate will be the moment that motivates reform.”

Earlier Wednesday, on MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews featured a segment with Skvara and hailed him as “a great American who speaks so well to the needs of this country.”

Skvara complained that when the steel company he had worked for went bankrupt he lost his promised lifetime health insurance. Not surprisingly, neither Miller nor Matthews raised Skvara's lack of personal responsibility in planning ahead for his own future when he worked in a declining industry, burdened by high health care costs, that many predicted long ago would go out of business. Nor did they look into the responsibility of the union to which he paid dues for decades. On Hardball, Skvara did acknowledge that he's on Medicare and his wife, who is several years younger, will qualify for Medicare in a few years.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2007/08/08/universal-heath-care-backers-moment-truth-championed-cbs-evening-news