TV Reviews : A Cursory Look at the Health Care Crisis

Among the many Republican weapons lobbed at Jimmy Carter during his losing presidential reelection campaign in 1980 was the “misery index,” designed to measure how the economy was killing the middle class. Now the misery index has boomeranged on the Republicans in the White House, and it’s become literal: Americans miserable from health complaints that their insurance can’t cover.

PBS’ new edition of “The Health Quarterly” (at 8 tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28) gives as cursory a look at the health care crisis as critics accuse the presidential candidates of giving it. (A special “Health Quarterly” edition is promised in the fall, to cover the issue in more depth.) A reason for the surface treatment is the show’s hourlong magazine format; the edition also looks at cancer-ridden daughters of mothers who took the maternity drug DES, as well as a quick, superficial look at how AIDS is affecting dating.

Health care became political when Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate Harris Wofford stunned the experts last year by winning on the theme of “health care as a right.” Notably, this very phrase was in Bill Clinton’s underrated acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. (Clinton’s campaign maestro, James Carville, steered Wofford’s effort.)

We hear middle-class voters such as Fred and Rosemary Putnam bitterly decrying politicians for ignoring health care reform, and health care expert Dr. Robert Blendon explaining the candidates’ skittishness: Everyone loves the idea of reform, but no can agree on what it should look like.

While Clinton favors a “pay or play” plan--requiring businesses to provide employee health coverage or pay into a fund for the same--Bush urges a mix of tax incentives, streamlined billing and insurance industry reforms. The suggestion here that both are shying away from specifics isn’t true; Clinton’s plan is detailed enough to enrage small-business owners. It’s this report, not the candidates, that provides vagueness, half-truths and little analysis.

Far more affecting and pointed is the segment on DES, which is coming to haunt the daughters of mothers who took the drug from the late ‘40s to the ‘70s. Federally funded research on DES’ cancer-causing effects was cut in 1984, when it appeared that DES daughters were safe from harm. No more. Enough cases have appeared to trigger calls for new funding. The numbers are made poignant by the fate of Joyce Tautenhahn, seemingly cured of cancer, then hit with a tumor that several doctors misdiagnosed.