Over one million people participated in Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare For All” online town hall on January 23, corporate media totally silent.
Image courtesy www.sanders.senate.gov
Daniel Marans of the Huffington Post Reports:
“Sen. Bernie Sanders’ televised town hall on Tuesday night to promote “Medicare for all” drew a live audience of about 1.1 million people ― all of whom viewed the event exclusively online.”
One million people tuning in to an online town hall for a particular policy is a big deal—it shows that there is real grassroots support for a fair healthcare system. After years of inadequate but expensive healthcare, Americans are finally willing to fight for their interests in a meaningful way. I hope and believe that Medicare For All will be achieved within the next ten years as a direct result of the American people forcing action on the issue.
“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”
That’s part of Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It’s been said before, but let me reiterate: healthcare is a human right. Unfortunately, the American political establishment certainly doesn’t see it that way. Let’s look at corporate media’s reaction.
I’m posting this at 3:30 Pacific time, and…
CNN: Didn’t cover it
MSNBC: Didn’t cover it
Fox News: Of course not
ABC News: No
NBC News: No
Is it just me, or a town hall of one million people to push a particular policy kind of newsworthy? The recurring popularity of single-payer healthcare if opinion polls of Americans make corporate media’s coverage blackout on the issue even more disgusting. Of course, if Medicare were to be extended to all Americans, health insurance companies would go out of business, and corporate media doesn’t like upsetting powerful institutions. In democratic societies, media organizations are supposed to carefully monitor concentrations of power—not blatantly shill for them.
There is a small fraction of the American political establishment that supports single-payer healthcare: Democratic incumbents that were forced to support this enormously popular policy by their constituents. Over the past year, progressives have done some truly amazing work pushing the Democratic Party to the left on healthcare. They should apply the same principle to corporate media: fight them, expose them, and most importantly, don’t support them.