PBS SHILLS FOR HEALTH INSURANCE CORPORADOS

Russell Mokhiber, Counterpunch - Last year, former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid made a great documentary for the PBS show Frontline titled Sick Around the World. Reid traveled to five countries that deliver health care for all - UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan - to learn about how they do it. Reid found that the one thing these five countries had in common - none allowed for-profit health insurance companies to sell basic medical coverage.

Frontline then said to Reid - okay, we want you to go around the United States and make a companion documentary titled Sick Around the America.

So, Reid traveled around America, interviewing patients, doctors, and health insurance executives.

The documentary that resulted - Sick Around America - aired on PBS.

But even though Reid did the reporting for the film, he was cut out of the film when it aired this week.

And the film didn't present Reid's bottom line for health care reform - don't let health insurance companies profit from selling basic health insurance. . .

Instead, the film that aired pushed the view that Americans be required to purchase health insurance from for-profit companies. . .

The producers of the Frontline piece had a point of view - they wanted to keep the for-profit health insurance companies in the game. . .

"We spent months shooting that film," Reid explains. "I was the correspondent. We did our last interview on January 6. The producers went to Boston and made the documentary. About late February I saw it for the first time. And I told them I disagreed with it. They listened to me, but they didn't want to change it.". . .

"Frontline will never touch me a again – they are done with me," Reid said.