Reading between the lines

The New York Times has an article about the Swiss health system, and how it is in some ways similar to the bills currently before the US congress, minus the public option (a government run insurance plan that people could choose to buy).

What struck me was actually a small thing in the first paragraph, it serves as an excellent example of a larger trend:

Like every other country in Europe, Switzerland guarantees health care for all its citizens. But the system here does not remotely resemble the model of bureaucratic, socialized medicine often cited by opponents of universal coverage in the United States.

This creates a contrast, implying that some places do resemble the model of "bureaucratic, socialized mediciine" cited by opponents of universal coverage. But, as those of us living in Soviet Canuckistan are aware, our system certainly isn't like that, and none of the European ones are.

Ironically, the health care system that most exemplifies the fears of right wing opponents of universal health care is....the United States of America. The business of american health insurance companies is to collect premiums and then use the money to pay private sector bureaucracies whose purpose is to find ways to deny coverage.

This sort of thing would be trivial, except that it's widespread. Show me an article in the NYT, and I'll find you a similar flaw*. Collectively, this warps political discourse. It is normal in American politics to assume that there are actual, existing bureaucratic nightmare systems. There are many other unexamined assumptions on all subject matters which shape our narratives.

I long thought this was normal, and natural, and that's how newspapers are. But when I went to France, I noticed that it rarely happened. I read Le Monde and, I noticed a conspicuous absence of that sort of thing. Every week with Le Monde there came a NYT supplement, and I frequently found myself annoyed while reading it, as it made such silly errors when compared to the French press.

* Seriously, find me any political or economic article, a normal one, not an in-depth one, and I can show you how it has errors which warp our perception of the world.