Slanting the Story: The Forces That Shape the News

Let me apologize straight up, I have not read the book- but I have, just today (Nov.2003) on alternet.org, read her related - and excellent - essay on the new Bush Medicare "reform" legislation, and what it means to the future of Medicare. (Sidenote: It may mean the end of Medicare, beginning about a decade from now: The healthy are given incentives to get out of Medicare, the insurance corporations are given tax subsidies to compete against Medicare, and only the old and sick will be left in Medicare - which will have less money and so higher costs. To the charge that the law may end Medicare, Republican Senator Thompson responded, "I hope so." These facts are relevent to my review of this book.) I write this review because passage of the law seems to fulfill predictions made in her book (as gathered from the other reviews here). This prediction from her book of 2000 has come true: In order to "save" Medicare, the 2003 law may end it. Another prediction: The AARP, targeted by the GOP, as warned by this author, did indeed support the new Medicare law. (Indeed, the guy who is CEO of the AARP since 2000 also wrote the intro to discredited former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's book on how to dismantle Medicare.) My 5 stars review here is points for the author being correct, and also to counter any bias in the only two other reviews here, which are given unfair weight due to so few reviews. Also, the author's credentials are good: she is a contributor to Consumer Reports and Columbia Journalism Review. If the book is written as well as her essay which I read, then the author writes clearly and to the point. Not a rant or rave, just the facts. I like that, I can think for myself.