The Michigan Daily - Monday, July 17, 2006 - 5
VIEWPOINT
What Stiggy didn't say
The media's call of duty
THERESA KENNELLY TIERE'S A REASON
BY DAN ADAMS
As an avid reader of The Michigan
Daily, I'm quite familiar with columnist
John Stiglich's recent work. Within the last
year, Stiglich has lectured black families
on the causes of poverty (In Dissent: Fam-
ily ties, 11/04/2005), referred to Wal-Mart
as a "poverty warrior" (Wal-mart: poverty
warrior, 5/22/2006) and openly advocated
torturing foreign captives because "you
do what you have to do" (The politics of
torture, 6/5/2006). Needless to say, I'm
used to taking his columns with a grain
of salt. But, Stiglich's most recent piece
(A prescription for healthcare, 07/10/2006)
cannot go unchallenged.
Though the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights established medical care
as a fundamental right, according to Sti-
glich, the ability to see a doctor when
you're sick is a privilege, "not a birth
right." "Empirically," he writes, "univer-
sal healthcare is one of the worst ideas in
the history of man."
A brief examination exposes this as an
embarrassing and irresponsible charac-
terization of the facts.
By almost every empirical measure,
universal health care outperforms Amer-
ica's market-based system. Our system is
more expensive than universal healthcare:
According to anOrganizationofEconomic
Cooperation and Development report, we
spend an average of 34 to 75 percent more
as of GDP on healthcare than do developed
nations with universal healthcare.
Despite that, a 2000 World Health
Organization study ranked the perfor-
mance of America's health care system an
embarrassing 37th, behind many nations
with universal healthcare. Forty-five mil-
lion Americans don't have health insur-
ance. When ill, they face the choice of
paying for their treatment or letting their
health deteriorate. Given the costs asso-
ciated with the former, it's not surprising
that many Americans choose the latter: A
2004 study found that Americans were the
most likely to report not seeing a doctor
when ill, not receiving recommended fol-
low-up care and going without medication
because of high costs.
We do eventually treat the uninsured
- at taxpayer expense. In 2001 alone,
treating the uninsured cost the U.S. gov-
ernment more than $30 billion.
Stiglich would have you believe that
coveringthese Americans with auniversal
healthcare plan would be "less efficient."
This is false: Studies by the Congressional
LETTERS
Continued from Page 4
*Abstemiousness' no
qualification for office
TO THE DAILY:
I swallowed some bile when I read
your account of "qualifications" offered
by Democrats at the forum hosted by
Ann Arbor's Democratic Party (Primary
candidates join in forum, 07/17/2006): "I
don't own a car."
My fellow members of the political
left, most voters do own cars. Despite
our distaste for the expense, hassle and
environmental impact associated with
car ownership, we need cars to get to our
Budget Office and the General Account-
ability Office have estimated that the
costs of covering all Americans would be
offset by the administrative savings found
in a universal system.
Even for Americans with health insur-
ance, the America's market-oriented
system is far from idyllic. A 2005 study
found that Americans were the most like-
ly out of the six nations polled to report
having experienced one of four types
of medical error. A 2004 study ranked
America fifth out of six nations on wait
times to see a doctor. Only 33 percent of
Americans report being able to see a doc-
tor the day they became sick, and 19 per-
cent waiting six days or more. The four
nations thatfinished ahead of America all
have universal healthcare.
With a mountain of empirical evidence
against him, how can Stiglich possibly
maintain that universal healthcare is "one
of the worst ideas in the history of man?"
"Go into any hospital in Buffalo," he sug-
gests,"and count the numberofCanadians
fleeing their utopian universal healthcare
systemto seek treatment in America."
Since counting the number of Canadi-
ans in American hospitals seems a laugh-
able way of evaluating the adequacy of
universal healthcare, I went ahead and
did what Stiglich didn't do: research. In
2000, the WHO ranked the Canadian sys-
tem higher than the American system in
terms of its overall performance. Among
developed nations, America ranks 23rd
in terms of life expectancy and 27th in
infantmortality --two imperfect, but oft-
cited measures of quality of life. All of the
nations ahead of us have publicly funded
or universal healthcare. Canadians spend
less per patient, less overall, and oh, by the
way: All Canadians have coverage. It's
not surprising, then, that in 1991 the GAO
published a reportthat called on U.S. law-
makers to look to the Canadian system for
guidance in reforming our broken system.
In sum: We pay more. We die earlier.
Millions of Americans can't see a doctor
when they're sick; the rest still face long
waits and medical errors. Most of all, uni-
versal healthcare systems consistentlyrank
higherthantheAmericansystembyalmost
every measure. If all this is true, why are so
many Americans still convinced that uni-
versal healthcare won't work?
Maybe they've been reading too much
of Stiglich's work.
Adams is an alum and aformer
associate editorial page editor.
jobs because our elected officials haven't
done enough aboutlcontrolling sprawl and
creating public transportation. Car own-
ership makes us privy to problems (how
to pay for the car, howto drive it, where to
park it) that are subjects of public policy.
Candidates, when you brag about not
owning a car, you're explaining that you
regard that privilege as a qualification for
office.You're askingus to put youin aposi-
tion to make policy about things of which
you have no personal understanding, and
for which you publicly express disdain.
Abstemiousness is a sound moral
choice, but portraying it as a political
qualification is a serious mistake. When
you talk like this, even I don't want to
vote for you.
Alyssa Picard
Alum
D espite made this decision casually, with any ani-
reminding mus toward the current Administration, or
viewers without fully weighing the issues."
every commer- But what goes above and beyond the
cial break that it concerns the American public has toward
remains "the most the media is the anger of many top offi-
trusted name is cials in Washington. After the June 23
news," CNN's Times story, President Bush held a press
credibility is conference to declare that the coverage
steadily falling, of the monitoring program "does great
and its proud slogan has lost much sig- harm to the United States of America."
nificance in the era of politically polar- Some Republican congressmen are even
izing media sources. Boasting only a attempting to get the attorney general to
32-percent credibility rating according prosecute the Times, saying that the story
to the Pew Research Center, CNN has put Americans' lives at risk.
lost almost 10 percentage points since In an attempt to somehow distinguish
1998. But even that's high compared to themselves from the Times and avoid
the "most trusted" printed news source, similar condemnation in Washington, The
The Wall Street Journal, which now only Wall Street Journal's editorial page has
has 24 percent of readers believing "all taken to attacking the Times as well. In
or most of what it says," down from 41 a June 30 editorial (Fit and Unfit to Print)
percent in 2000. the Journal's edit page said that it no lon-
In recent months,the trust issue has taken ger trusts the Times to properly balance
a wild turn for the worst, owing to media national security concerns and the public's
coverage of the government's monitoring right to know. Of course, it's no secret that
of phone and international banking records. the News section of the Journal rarely
The issue is no longer just about the unre- agrees with its edit page's critiques, and
liability of the media; now the American the result was no different this time, with
public is concerned with and fearful of the the Journal's political editor declaring that
media's capabilities as well. These senti- he was shocked by the editorial.
ments have escalated so much in the past But what the Journal's edit page and oth-
couple of weeks, newspaper editors have ers whotthreaten the Times have forgotten is
been forced torespond to reader's criticisms that there is a small section in the Constitu-
of their editorial decisions. Most notably, tion that gives the Times the right to publish
Bill Keller, the Executive Editor of the New the story. It's called freedom of the press,
York Times - blamed for leaking the bank you know, wedged in the First Amendment
monitoring-program in a June 23news story between freedoms of speech and assembly.
- defended the Times's decision in an open The Times's decision to cover national
letter stating, "Nobody should think that we security operations is protected under the
A modern-day Salem
JARED GOLDBERG IF NOT Now, WHEN?
Constitution and, as long as they legally
obtained the information and presented it
in a truthful manner, there are no grounds
for prosecution. The Journal's edit page is
only hurting itself by saying that the media
should obey the governmentby denying its
right to publish whatever it deems impor-
tant for its readers. For the government to
have any control over what the media pub-
lishes is simply not permissible no matter
what the ramifications. As Thomas Jef-
ferson said, "Our liberty depends on the
freedom of the press, and that cannot be
limited without being lost:"
With fewer and fewer Americans con-
sidering media sources credible, publish-
ing information that may harm the public
and potentially foil the anti-terrorismstrat-
egies of the government will only further
cause people to lose faith in the media. In
order to increase readers' trust, the Times,
as well as the Journal, CNN, Fox News
and every other media outlet need to use
their freedom with more integrity. This
means having the ability to ascertain when
they have indeed crossed the line from
providing solid news coverage to provid-
ing superfluous, dangerous and perhaps
unethical coverage that serves no purpose
to the American public.
Especially in this time of heightened
security concerns, when it comes to poten-
tially endangering human lives, media
sources must administer careful discretion
and be fully capable of defending their
publishing decisions.
Kennelly can be reached at
thenelly@umich.edu.
ur story
begins in
a small
town in the north-
ern United States.
A typical American
family - we'll call
them the Smiths
- attends their
daughter's high
school graduation. The Smiths are one of
the few Christian families in town, and
the daughter is the only Christian in her
graduating class. During the convocation,
a local imam says the following prayer:
"I also pray for one specific student, that
you be with her and guide her in the path
that you have for her. And we ask all
these things in Allah's name." This was
the straw that broke the camel's -I mean
the Smiths' - back. It seems-the Smith
children had been harassed in their school
for being Christian for a long time.
Among the things that the Smith
children had to endure was school
sponsored prayer, members of Torah,
Quran, Vedas and Tripitaka clubs being
allowed to go to the front of the line at
lunch, teachers advocating for Judaism,
Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism in class
and, worst of all, prayers to all of those
religions at school board meetings.
When the Smiths protested, school
board officials refused to change their
policies regarding prayers of other reli-
gions at meetings. The Smiths were told
not to seek legal counsel as part of a com-
promise that would include only non-sec-
tarian prayers at the convocation. When
it fell through, the school board again
secretly conferred with the Smiths, this
time assuring the family that they would
seek the counsel of the American Civil
Liberties Union.
Despite this, the school board decided
to develop a religion policy at their next
meeting, where the Smiths were openly
harassed and threatened. When the
younger Smith son wanted to read his
statement, the crowd shouted vulgarities
at him. When his statement was finally
read, the boy told the school board it hurt
his feelings when his classmates called
him "Christboy."
State representatives present at the
meeting announced that board mem-
bers who changed the religious policies
in the school district would be replaced.
Callers to the local radio station, which
had been exacerbating the situation
over the airwaves, demanded that the
Smiths convert.
The Smith boy faced further harass-
ment at school. Classmates called him
a "crusader," and he frequently took off
his cross when he went grocery shopping
with his mother to avoid any altercations.
The fiasco forced the Smiths to move
from their hometown. After leaving, they
filed a lawsuit against the school district
for violating their civil rights. School
board members have dismissed the charg-
es as frivolous. They have yet to change
their policies, and local judges seem sym-
pathetic to the board. One judge ruled that
sectarian prayers at school board meet-
ings were a historic tradition.
Bring this case to the attention of Bill
O'Reilly, SeanHannityRushLimbaugh
or any other member of the Christian
right, and they'd side with the Smiths.
They might argue, given past statements
around December of every year, that the
Smiths' rights as Christians have been
violated, just like around the country
where the civil rights of Christians are
being destroyed by secularists and mul-
ticulturalists. They might ask you to
write your local newspaper or congress-
man demanding action.
Then tell them that the Smiths are Jew-
ish. Their real name is the Dobrichs, and
their community is not a mob of multicul-
turalists but rather fundamentalist Chris-
tians who preach (in public schools, of all
places, the supremacy of their beliefs and
typical anti-Semitic diatribes. The school
district is the Indian River School District
in Delaware. Then see if their reactions
are the same. But don't hold your breath.
When it comes to protecting the fun-
damental freedom of religion for people
other than Christians, conservatives and
their allies inthe state and federal govern-
ments don't seem to hold the same stan-
dards as they do for people of their faith.
This shows the danger of allowing
any kind of religious interference in gov-
ernment. If we allow schools and their
respective boards to continue with this
type of oppression, we have returned to
puritanical Salem, circa 1690.
And the wood is already starting
to burn.
Goldberg can be reached at
jaredgo@umich.edu.