PNHP Logo

| SITE MAP | ABOUT PNHP | CONTACT US | LINKS

NAVIGATION PNHP RESOURCES
Posted on January 27, 2009

BBC Show on U.S. Health Care Unavailable in USA

PRINT PAGE
EN ESPAÑOL

John Tepper Marlin
Huffington Post
1/26/09

My sister Brigid Marlin lives in the UK and a few days ago was watching a BBC program on health care in the United States. Brigid is not a public affairs junkie so I was interested when she sent me an email reporting that the program was a shocking portrayal of the high cost and low coverage of U.S. medical care. This itself is not news but there are two things about the show that are worth an alert: (1) The BBC’s effectiveness in describing the problems with U.S. health care, and (2) The fact that Americans can’t watch it. My sister says:

They were discussing the problems that Obama faces in meeting his promise to provide health care for poor Americans. The program showed an English medical team that set out to provide medical services to poor people overseas. They ended up spending 60 percent of their time helping poor Americans, as they are the most needy! We were shown people getting up at 4 am and driving for hundreds of miles to be early in a huge queue for a doctor’s help.

The program was produced by BBC’s Panorama, the world’s oldest television documentary program, begun in 1953.

The Panorama team managed to get inside a briefing that a large US insurance company was giving its staff, awarding them huge bonuses for finding loopholes in the clients’ policies, so they didn’t have to pay up! They boasted that one employee had saved the company $7 million by giving them the basis for refusing to pay out because of a tiny flaw in the way they had filled out the form. This story was contrasted with the company’s television ads, where a kindly fatherly figure assures clients that they will be safe and looked after.

The BBC itself describes the program as follows:

Barack Obama takes over as U.S. President with a promise to dramatically change America and make it a fairer place. He is inheriting the worst economic crisis in almost a century, and a country so unequal that 23,000 people die every year because they cannot afford basic healthcare. To close the gap between rich and poor Obama will have to take on the might of the corporate world, which wields enormous influence in Washington. Can he change the world’s most powerful country, and should he?

My sister’s message to me goes on:

The drug companies are just as bad, Panorama shows. They have bumped up their prices so that Americans pay twice as much for their medicines as the same companies charge to other countries. It seems that the drug companies are uncontrollable because they wine and dine the senators so no votes are cast against their policies. The program showed the drug companies supporting senators with money for electioneering and their favourite charities. They are determined not to allow a comprehensive health care system in America!

Well, I attempted to watch the program myself and give you a link to it. It was broadcast on BBC One, 8:30 pm, January 19. It’s a half-hour show produced by Jeremy Vine. My sister is not the only fan of the show. It is posted as a “pick” by blogger “Up Your Ego: Love Your Inner Geek”. The blogger is trying to emulate the “brilliant” Watchification, Telegraph iPlayer Pick of the Day and the Radio Times Downloads index, and says:

My pick is the Panorama special on the USA health care system. I really enjoyed Michael Moore’s Sicko but it was a little (ok a lot) one sided. A great piece of entertainment and a good piece of journalism when preaching to the choir BUT lacking slightly in balance. The BBC tries to look at both sides of the story. Watch it HERE.

Unfortunately, when I tried the link in several places, I got a message each time that the link won’t work in the United States. So the best anyone can do, so far as I know, is to get a U.S.-formatted DVD sent over or persuade a PBS station to air the program in the United States. The program’s e-mail address is: panorama@bbc.co.uk. I have written to them asking to be advised if the health care show has been or will be aired here. No answer to my question yet.

John Tepper Marlin teaches corporate responsibility and finance to MBA and MPA students as Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, the University of Geneva, and Pace University.


BBC documentary takes on Obama’s plans for American health care system

Nick Cargo
Raw Story
Sunday, January 25, 2009

A January 19 episode of BBC One’s Panorama, the world’s longest running television documentary show, tackles the dismal state of health care in the United States, the lengths to which its estimated 45 million uninsured citizens will go to in pursuit of care, the pharmaceutical industry’s rigged pricing against the American patient, and the insurance industry’s efforts to deny care whenever possible.

The documentary opens in rural Kentucky, where people have driven within a 200-mile radius to wait in line in the early morning for a spot in line to see a volunteer doctor thanks to the efforts of Remote Access Medical, who originally set out to help people in the Amazon jungle, but now focus 60% of their time on Americans.

“The need is enormous,” said the organization’s founder Stan Brock. “We discovered…there are people here that need help just as much as they do in Guatemala or in the Amazon and all these other places we go to.”

President Obama faces a difficult task to deliver on his promises of change, the segment explains, the country divided between the “super rich” and the “new poor,” and lobbyists putting their power to work to prevent reforms from taking place. Also, 533 members of Congress, out of 535, have received campaign contributions from within the health sector.

“We plan on mounting a national campaign,” warned health insurance industry lobbyist Angela Hunter, “and what we hope to do is to, number one, get some articles in the newspaper explaining what the problems are that we see with the plan. Two: Educate lawmakers, people who are members of our organizations, their clients—to go and lobby members of Congress—call them on the phone, visit them in their offices, and to just do everything that we can possibly do to preserve the freedom of choice for individuals in health care in America.”

“It’s really a system of legalized bribery,” said Richard Kirsch of Healthcare for America Now. “As one congressman says, we’re the only people in the world who are expected to take money from strangers and provide nothing in return.”

Due to licensing restrictions, the episode, “What Now, Mr. President?,” is only officially available to view online from connections within the United Kingdom. However, it has also been uploaded to YouTube, where it appears in three parts below.