What happens when you treat health care like a soap opera

Cable news treated a major health care vote like an episode of House of Cards. That kind of coverage might make for entertaining television, but it badly warps the way viewers at home understand what's at stake in the fight over health care.

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In the coverage of the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, cable news networks have largely fixated on the drama of trying to get the Republican’s bill through Congress: the vote whipping, the partisan infighting, and Trump’s efforts to make a “deal” with the more conservative members of his party.

Treating the debate over health care like an episode of House of Cards might make for good television, but it fails to accomplish the basic goal of good political journalism: to explain why this stuff matters to people outside of DC. And if the angry town halls across the country reveal anything, it’s that you don’t need the drama of congressional politics to make people care about what’s happening to their health care.

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Видео What happens when you treat health care like a soap opera канала Vox