U.S. Report Downplayed Health Problems (dif between rich and non-rich)

[papau]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3735804,00.html

U.S. Report Downplayed Health Problems

Wednesday February 11, 2004 2:01 PM
By MARK SHERMAN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said that his department was wrong to edit a report about health care for minorities to downplay serious problems and emphasize improvements.

Responding to criticism from Democratic lawmakers, Thompson on Tuesday said the report, issued in December, would be released in its original form calling health care disparities pervasive ``national problems.''

<snip>

Democrats protested the changes to Thompson after they obtained the original draft report. The final version eliminated the conclusion that unequal care for minorities is a national problem, the Democrats said in a letter to Thompson.

The word ``disparity'' was used more than 30 times in the ``key findings'' section of the draft's executive summary, they said. It appeared just twice in the final version. <snip>

[Laughing Mirror]

1. Just write health care out of the script

If it's such a drag on the story line.

We should get a copy of the draft report and the excised final version. We might marvel over how the "unnamed officials" were able to reconcile their no doubt rosy report with somewhat more gloomier statistics, providing of course that the charts and graphs were not themselves recast or were not illegible, like those hastily photo-shopped pay stubs that Scott McClellan kept brandishing, very pitifully, at the PR conference yesterday.

Like Thomson defending the faulty report by blaming its editors. They "took it upon themselves, felt they were doing the right thing," he said. Would he have preferred they delete health care altogether, write it completely out of the scenario. Write things as they are, how do you contrive a happy ending?

[papau]

2. Morning in America #2 requires a rewrite! :-)

but then the first version was a lie that the media pushed because they liked Reagan.