Normal
0

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”;}

Health Care Reform Update: Kudos to the Quad-City Times
for Making Health Care Reform Real for Its Readers

by Alta Price, MD

When I sat down to Sunday morning breakfast with the
Quad-City Times, it just about knocked my socks off. Wow! Front page coverage and story after
story about how health care reform will impact real live people in my community.

The Quad-City Times interviewed local people with differing health care
situations, detailing their problems with insurance, the costs they face, how
health insurance determines their job choices, how they decide whether to buy
insurance, and so on. Then they covered how the House bill or Senate bill would
impact those individuals or families, describing individual mandates,
subsidies, and so on, but bringing it down to a very real, accessible level by
using these real life examples. They did a great job of including comments from
Senator Grassley and Senator Harkin about issues that are more debatable, such
as whether reform will lower or increase the cost of health insurance for the
average person.

This is not the first time I have been impressed with the
Quad-City Times coverage of health care reform. They have had
excellent editorials, as well as guest opinion pieces by health care providers
and others. Monday they had a great opinion piece, “Iowans need not fear
Medicare changes”, from the CEOs of Trinity Regional Health System and Iowa Health System, a
network of 26 hospitals and group practices of physicians and clinics in Iowa.
And they have published countless letters to the editor on health care reform.

Breakfast with the Quad-City Times is one of my cherished
morning rituals. Since I first started practice in Sterling,
Colorado in 1982, I have always subscribed
to my local paper. I will admit I first subscribed to the Sterling
Journal-Advocate when one of the other doctors told me
you need to subscribe just to make sure they are quoting you correctly! But I
quickly grew to love that paper. And I’ll never forget in the run up to the
Iraq war, I figured out the war was bogus by reading the coverage in the
Quad-City Times, when my liberal friends reading the New York Times got
suckered in. 

And I will also remember that when we struggled to get the word
out to people about health care reform, a very complicated and controversial
topic further confused by falsehoods promulgated by those with a stake in the
status quo, it was my local paper that best educated the people in my community
about the issue.

Check out the Quad-City Times website on health care reform to see what else they are doing. You can enter
your health care story there as well. I am curious – are any other Iowa
papers doing anything similar? If so, I’d love to get links to their health
care reform coverage up at Blog for Iowa.
E-mail me and let me know.

Alta
Price is a physician practicing Pathology in Davenport, Iowa. One of
the original Deaniacs, she stays involved with Democracy for America,
Iowa, and the Quad Cities. She advocates for quality, affordable health
care for all, primarily as a volunteer with Progressive Action for the
Common Good (Health Care Reform Issue Forum).  Watch for Dr. Price's Health Care Reform Update every Tuesday here on Blog for Iowa.  E-Mail Alta Price