Has the Media Killed Healthcare Reform?

Has the Media Killed Healthcare Reform?

Has the Media Killed Healthcare Reform?

The Nation‘s editor and publisher, Katrina vanden Heuvel, joins a panel discussion on the media’s coverage of healthcare and the Gates arrest.

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

Recent polls have shown more and more Americans doubting Obama’s stance
on health care, though the majority is still generally supportive. With
Republicans and conservative Democrats balking at reform while right
wing pundits condemn his plans, will Obama go the way of Clinton when it
comes to healthcare?

Most agree the issue of healthcare is getting sufficient coverage and
exposure in the mainstream media, but is it getting the right kind of
coverage? The topic has often been belittled to another means of
partisan divide, and most citizens still lack basic knowledge of reform
plans in favor of rhetoric from one side or the other.

Mainstream media reaction to Henry Louis Gates’ arrest and its aftermath
continued to fill the airwaves, with Glenn Beck commenting on Obama’s
“racism” and desire for “reparations,” Rush Limbaugh accusing him of
trying to ruin a white police officer and Michele Malkin calling him a
“racial opportunist.”

To discuss these topics and more we’re joined by Hendrik Hertzberg,
Senior Editor and Staff Writer for The New Yorker, along with Editor and
Publisher of The Nation Katrina Vanden Heuvel, and Nancy Giles,
contributor for CBS News Sunday Morning.

Disobey authoritarians, support The Nation

Over the past year you’ve read Nation writers like Elie Mystal, Kaveh Akbar, John Nichols, Joan Walsh, Bryce Covert, Dave Zirin, Jeet Heer, Michael T. Klare, Katha Pollitt, Amy Littlefield, Gregg Gonsalves, and Sasha Abramsky take on the Trump family’s corruption, set the record straight about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s catastrophic Make America Healthy Again movement, survey the fallout and human cost of the DOGE wrecking ball, anticipate the Supreme Court’s dangerous antidemocratic rulings, and amplify successful tactics of resistance on the streets and in Congress.

We publish these stories because when members of our communities are being abducted, household debt is climbing, and AI data centers are causing water and electricity shortages, we have a duty as journalists to do all we can to inform the public.

In 2026, our aim is to do more than ever before—but we need your support to make that happen. 

Through December 31, a generous donor will match all donations up to $75,000. That means that your contribution will be doubled, dollar for dollar. If we hit the full match, we’ll be starting 2026 with $150,000 to invest in the stories that impact real people’s lives—the kinds of stories that billionaire-owned, corporate-backed outlets aren’t covering. 

With your support, our team will publish major stories that the president and his allies won’t want you to read. We’ll cover the emerging military-tech industrial complex and matters of war, peace, and surveillance, as well as the affordability crisis, hunger, housing, healthcare, the environment, attacks on reproductive rights, and much more. At the same time, we’ll imagine alternatives to Trumpian rule and uplift efforts to create a better world, here and now. 

While your gift has twice the impact, I’m asking you to support The Nation with a donation today. You’ll empower the journalists, editors, and fact-checkers best equipped to hold this authoritarian administration to account. 

I hope you won’t miss this moment—donate to The Nation today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel 

Editor and publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x