By Denise Tessier
Once again, the Journal ran a Rio Grande Foundation guest column without identifying the writer as an adjunct fellow for the conservative group.
This time, it’s a column on Medicare. Entitled “Feds Shouldn’t Make Health Care Choices,” the article was written by Dr. J. Deane Waldman, who is identified as “Author of ‘Uproot U.S. Health Care’.”
A reader might have wondered about the agenda of this writer, not knowing if he was a medical doctor or the academic kind. Further research reveals he is a medical doctor, and reading the description of his self-published book on Amazon.com, he sounds like he might have some interesting ideas about how to fix healthcare.
The Rio Grande Foundation’s web site lists him as an “adjunct fellow” of RGF and says:
In his book – Uproot U.S. Healthcare – Deane shares insights into the root causes of why the healthcare system consistently fails patients, providers, and our country alike. Most important, the book shows why the public and only the public can and must fix healthcare.
Waldman doesn’t share those ideas in the Journal column, however. Instead, he criticizes any federal role in health care, and accuses Congress of nanomanaging Medicare:
Nanomanagement is heading toward denial of life-saving services because the “beast” (government) gets fed first: Patients and providers get what is left over.
Just look at people dying in Canada waiting in line for “approved” care, or those dying in Great Britain because they are too old for NHS-approved treatments.
Lest you accuse me of exaggeration, each assertion herein can be proven in newspapers and on TV: Canadian, British and C-SPAN.
Regardless of the content of Waldman’s column, readers deserve to know his affiliation with the Rio Grande Foundation because RGF is a New Mexico-based dispenser of national conservative-agenda ideas, to the point that it is more likely to cling to that ideology than look out for the welfare of New Mexico’s children or look out for those among us who have waited in line and/or died for lack of affordable non-government run U.S. health care.
And as we’ve pointed out on this site several times, the Journal not only uses RGF columns and letters to the editor with regularity, it also solicits RGF for quotes in news stories.
Once again, the Journal dropped the ball when it failed to point out this guest columnist’s affiliation with RGF. Columnists’ affiliations with think tanks and foundations should always be pointed out, regardless of political leanings, especially when driven by political leanings. Readers deserve to know.
The Journal certainly should be criticized for not revealing the columnist’s affiliation with the RGF. But over and above that, the main thing is that the Journal should be criticized for printing biased columns that perpetuate stereotypes (viz., the canard about how Canadians and British are “dying while on the waiting list”), without printing counter-columns that explode conservative myths. Presumably even conservatives are capable of writing intelligent opinions based on facts, so mere affiliation with the RGF doesn’t necessarily mean that the columnist is a raving idiot (although we may certainly wonder about that). In the old days I enjoyed reading William F. Buckley, even though I disagreed with him, but he did package his ideas well. All I expect from the Journal is some attempt to present opposing views from both sides of the political spectrum on important issues. That is clearly not going to happen, as long as the Journal remains a mouth-piece for the Republican party.
Just recently came upon your Website…what a breath of fresh air! Keep up the great work. It truly is a shame that real journalists like yourselves have to keep the charlatans honest, but you provide a very necessary and important function these days. The Journal makes a mockery of the tenets of unbiased and fair reportage so it is particularly refreshing to see your more honest take.–FC