Two Years Apart CBS & ABC Feature Same Woman as Drug Cost Victim

What a coincidence. Two years apart CBS News and ABC News featured the same elderly woman, in news stories about the need for a new prescription drug coverage program in Medicare and the shortcomings of Republican-pushed alternatives, as the poster victim of high prescription costs.

The MRC's Tim Graham noticed, while working on the Media Reality Check excerpted in item #4 above, the exploitation of the very same woman, Eva Baer-Schenkein, by the two networks.

But CBS and ABC didn't agree on her ailment. CBS's Diana Olick complained in 2001: “President Bush backs a plan that would target only the poorest and that leaves out middle income patients like Eva Baer-Schenkein." Baer-Schenkein asserted: "So now I'm not taking anything at all for my osteoporosis."

Two years later, ABC's Linda Douglass worried about how “71-year old Eva Baer-Schenkein suffers from hypertension and other health problems. She cannot afford the cost of her prescription drugs and is tired of waiting for Congress to help her.”

Diana Olick began: "No sooner had the winning gavel sounded on the Patients' Bill of Rights than Senate Democrats announced they would charge ahead on comprehensive health care reform when they return from the holiday recess."

Following a clip of Senator Bob Graham of Florida, Olick explained: "Last Thursday Democrats introduced a Medicare reform act which includes unlimited prescription drug benefits for seniors who have paid their deductibles. President Bush backs a plan that would target only the poorest and that leaves out middle income patients like Eva Baer-Schenkein."

Olick helpfully chipped in: "Because she can't afford the three and half thousand dollars a year for the drug her doctor prescribed."

Baer-Schenkein: "When I was given this bill I almost passed out. The pharmacy was crowded so I felt embarrassed to give it back."

Olick: "In the last two decades prescription drug prices have increased 300 percent. Last year Americans spent $116 billion to get their medications...."

-- Fast forward to last week, and ABC featured the whinings from the very same woman on the June 11, 2003 World News Tonight.

Linda Douglass excitedly relayed: “The President and the Congress are hurrying now to pass this prescription drug plan. They do not want to face the voters in this, next year’s election and tell them that they’ve failed one more time. Seventy-one-year old Eva Baer-Schenkein suffers from hypertension and other health problems. She cannot afford the cost of her prescription drugs and is tired of waiting for Congress to help her.”

Eva Baer-Schenkein: “I mean, we’re not asking for diamond rings or cars or furs or anything. We’re just asking to have what we need to keep us alive.”

Senator John Breaux (D-LA): “It is, I think, an historic opportunity for the Senate, in a bipartisan fashion, to come together and produce a product that is something that we can all be proud of.”

Douglass worried the plan isn't expensive enough: “The Senate is galloping toward passage of a prescription drug bill, but Senators voted earlier this year to limit the cost of any plan to $400 billion over 10 years. So the Senate plan has limits. It covers half of seniors drug bills up to $3,450 per year, then there is a gap in coverage to keep the cost of the plan down. Coverage resumes when drug costs $5,300 a year. Democrats complain that a third of seniors will still be stuck with big bills...”

NGOs - the New World Order

Exclusive commentary by Helen and Peters Evans

Jun 19, 2003

When the dictator, Josef Stalin, first appeared at the brand-new United Nations accompanied by representatives of Soviet "labor unions," other delegates cried foul, asking, "How can there be labor unions in a government-run society?" Stalin explained, "Ah, but these are Non-Governmental Organizations," and the term "NGO" first came into the world's vocabulary.

Nowadays, most of us are likely to think of NGOs as large-scale charitable organizations who work all over the world providing medical care in disaster situations, food to famine sufferers or advocacy for political prisoners. One of the main reasons we even recognize the names of the well-known groups is that they often canvass door to door for donations to support their good works.

However, there is a growing number of less well-known NGOs who don't want to help the hungry feed themselves, rather, their aim is to "eradicate hunger." They don't want to help the poor become wealthy, rather, their goal is to "eliminate poverty." Do these distinctions sound picky? Well, they're not. Helping people means getting down to cases with the real people who are asking for help, finding out what they really need and helping them in ways that enable them to actually provide it for themselves. The much more abstract aims of "eliminating" hunger or poverty typically involve utopian plans that are to be imposed upon people "for their own good."

Consider the "elimination of poverty." This abstract notion breeds anotherthe "re-distribution of wealth." We see this in the United States when our own Congress takes more and more wealth (in the form of taxes) from those who create it and "re-distributes" it, in the form of entitlements, to those who don't create, or earn, it. This is bad enough when a democratic nation, essentially, "does it to itself" through government policy. The citizens have the option of changing policies through democratic means. But what happens when non-governmental organizations try the same thing?

Consider a recent, international casethe "Kyoto Protocol To The United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change." If you think it's about controlling climate change, read it again. If it were implemented, its real function would be the "re-distribution of wealth" from the industrialized, developed nations to the less-industrialized, less-developed nations who, under Kyoto, will basically be paid not to develop. The important thing to notice though, is the composition of the United Nations. Although seats in the U.N. General Assembly are ostensibly held by 185 "sovereign nations" from around the world, they are outnumbered more than two-to-one by about 500 seat-holding NGO's who can submit papers, call for votes, exercise influence by lobbying 'real' members, etc. The only thing they can't do is vote. An additional 3,000 NGOs hold, not seats, but "consultant" status at the U.N.

Who the heck are all those NGOs and what are they doing at the UN? Well, they are self-appointed groups vying for government-sized budgets and global power, claiming a pseudo-governmental legitimacy while side-stepping the accountability that is the essential requirement of legitimate government. In short, these burgeoning elements of the global New-Left are "hijacking democracy."

This is the title of an analytical synthesis of studies conducted over the last decade by Marguerite Peeters, subtitled "the power shift to the un-elected." Ms Peeters gave a brief overview of the trends indicated by her research at a recent conference at the American Enterprise Institute. She also told those assembled of a tentative meeting scheduled this fall for representatives of major NGO's, the European Union and the Democratic Party of the U.S. Do you know why Bill Clinton has hinted that he'd like to be Secretary-General of the UN? He would be the leader of the largest socialist organization in the world, while his wife... well, you know where her sights are aimed. We should "be afraid; be very afraid" of where this trend is taking us, but only if the fear mobilizes us to change its direction.

We should begin by learning more about the pervasive influence NGO's already have and would like to have on our lives. The American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society have collaborated on a new website, NGO Watch Check it out. It's time for us to use our own influence.

"Recent years have seen an unprecedented growth in the power and influence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). While it is true that many NGOs remain true to grassroots authenticity conjured up in images of protest and sacrifice, it is also true that non-governmental organizations are now serious business. NGO officials and their activities are widely cited in the media and relied upon in congressional testimony; corporations regularly consult with NGOs prior to major investments. Many groups have strayed beyond their original mandates and assumed quasi-governmental roles. Increasingly, non-governmental organizations are not just accredited observers at international organizations, they are full-fledged decision-makers." ~ NGO Watch.org

Eva Baer-Schenkein is a politically active poet.

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/bookarts/2000/09/msg00115.html

MINDY BELLOFF MARTHA HALL
LISE POIRIER STEPHANIE ZACK
SUSAN ALLEN SUSAN ROTOLO
EVA BAER-SCHENKEIN

S E L F E X AM I N A T I O N
ARTIST BOOKS
h e a l i n g t h r o u g h c r e a t i v i t y

The Donnell Library Center
of the New York Public Library

S E P T E M B E R 1 ~ 3 0 , 2 0 0 0

An Exhibition of Artist Books
about Cancer and the Creative Spirit.

Curator: Alice Simpson

THE DONNELL LIBRARY CENTER
WEST WALL ~ MAIN FLOOR
20 West 53rd Street
New York, New York 10019

Artists have always found expression in
S E L F E X A M I N A T I O N
and it is appropriate that
The New York Public Library's
Donnell Library Center
celebrates creativity at the start of

CANCER AWARENESS MONTH

Curator's Statement:
This exhibition began as a tribute to Martha A Hall.
We first met at Haystack Mountain School in 1997.
Martha was first diagnosed with cancer in 1989 and
found an eloquent voice in the Artist Books sheâ€™s
created.
The unique books in this exhibition, and those she
continues to make are her personal voice:
speaking out, sharing, educating and healing.
Martha's one-of-a-kind Artist Books, inspired by her
poetry, photographs, prints, hand made papers and
collages speak in a compelling way of her own
self-examined life and spirit.

I could not put this exhibition together without
including the works of Susan Allen, Mindy Belloff,
Susan Rotolo, Lise Poirier, and Stephanie Zack, and
the courageous poetry of Eva Baer-Schenkein.
Their profoundly personal and poignant artworks
reflect
the healing powers of creative expression.

--Alice Simpson, Curator

LIBRARY HOURS:
Mon. ~ Wed. ~ Fri.: 10 am ~ 6 pm
Tues. & Thurs.: 10 am ~ 8 pm
Sat.: 10 am ~ 5 pm
[Exhibition closes 3pm Saturday, 9/30]

Directions:
Between Fifth and Sixth Avenue
(across the street from MOMA)
Subway: E, F to Fifth Avenue

=====
mindy belloff ~ mabell http://www.IntimaPress.com

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