Electing Health Care Coverage

May 2016 CrainsNewsPro.comCrainsNewsPro.com AHCJ: Thought in Cleveland Health Care Journalists Electing Invade Rock Capital Page 6 Health Care Building Freelance Coverage Into a Business It Takes a Plan to Achieve Success Page 10 Harnessing Too Much Information How to Take Advantage of Access to Big Data Page 12 TV Made Her a Better Doctor CBS’ Holly Phillips Tells It Like It Is Page 34 Presidential Candidates Focus on Medical Costs Page 4 NewsPro Healthcare May 2016 single pages.indd 1 4/18/16 7:22 PM We proudly congratulate our client DR. NATALIE AZAR Five Medical Journalists to Watch Honoree Represented through Bienstock, a United Talent Agency Company WWW.UNITEDTALENT.COM 16np0017.pdf RunDate: 5/02/16 Full Page Color: 4/C FROM THE EDITOR CrainsNewsPro.com e Picture of Health It’s a presidential election year, which means it’s time for rhetoric and policy proposals fueled by dreams of a better country. As it has been in the White House bids of recent decades, health care is a central issue this CONTENTS time around — although, as our cover story reports, the focus is not as much on access to it as the WHAT PRICE HEALTH CARE? ............ 4 escalating costs associated with it. Presidential Candidates Face the What are the repercussions of expanding — or replacing — Obamacare? Is it safe to buy less Issue of Rising Medical Costs expensive drugs from foreign countries? As our piece notes, reporters must continually fact check AHCJ ROCKS OHIO .............................. 6 and interpret what proposals really mean. Health Journalism 2016 Draws More Tracking the veracity of the candidates’ assertions about medical issues can require a Than 600 Attendees to Cleveland demanding degree of analysis by the journalists covering the beat. at is but one of the topics addressed by a panel at the recent Association of Health Care Journalists conference in Cleveland BRINGING NEWS HOME ..................... 8 An AHCJ Panel Offers Tips on Giving that we expand upon in this issue. National Stories Local Resonance We also feature on-the-scene coverage of the goings-on at Heath Journalism 2016 and further explore such vital conference topics as attaining — and maintaining — success as a freelance STRATEGIC WRITING ........................ 10 writer, and learning how to make the most of the “big data” that’s become readily accessible to A Successful Freelance Career Necessitates journalists in recent times. a Serious Business Plan In addition, we take a look at ve of TV’s most trusted providers of medical information. INFORMATION OVERLOAD ............... 12 ere are a number of guest contributions we’d like to acknowledge as well. How to Make Sense of the Big Data Gary Schwitzer details how his HealthNewsReview.org evaluates the ow of public That’s Now Accessible relations-furnished “data” to make health care reporters’ lives easier. PICKING THROUGH PR ..................... 14 Poynter.org columnist Elite Truong, product manager of Vox Media, oers a guide to HealthNewsReview’s Gary Schwitzer functioning as a media “hybrid” in the newsroom. Separates the Wheat From the Chaff e Milbank Memorial Fund’s Judith Zimmer explains how that foundation’s workshops FIVE TO WATCH ................................. 16 designed to help legislators better understand research results can benet journalists, too. A Quintet of TV Medical Names Who And CBS News’ Dr. Holly Phillips serves up a compelling cautionary tale in the Sign-O column. Have Earned Viewers’ Trust As our coverage out of Cleveland notes, AHCJ membership has grown by 50 percent during the past ve years — a period directly in the wake of the digital media revolution and subsequent FUSION FELLOWSHIPS .................... 20 newsroom downsizing that threatened the very existence of the beat. News Service Partners With California Endowment to Groom Young Journalists Now that’s an excellent health report. — Tom Gilbert, Editor ON RELIABLE RESEARCH ................ 22 Milbank Memorial Fund’s Workshop Helps Journalists as Well as Legislators ONE PERSON, MANY HATS .............. 24 ADVERTISING SALES A Guide for Success in the Hybrid Roles Ph: (212) 210-0748 EDITORIAL OFFICES of the New Media Environment Executive Producer: Phone: (212) 210-0748 Jeff Reisman, [email protected] (212) 210-0748 AHCJ WINNERS .................................. 26 Publisher: Fawn Lopez Producer: Danny Schreiber, [email protected] (503) 723-9688 The 2015 AHCJ Awards Recognize the Editor: Tom Gilbert Best Health Reporting in 11 Categories Art Director: Elise Cozzi Production Manager: Nicole Dionne SIGN-OFF ............................................ 34 NewsPro (ISSN 2151-1764), Volume 7, Issue 1, is published regularly at Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third Avenue, New How CBS News Medical Contributor York, NY 10017. Periodical postage pending at New York, NY, and additional mailing ofﬁces. POSTMASTER: send address changes to NewsPro, Circulation Dept., 1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit, MI 48207-2912. Holly Phillips Learned to Be Upfront NewsPro® is a registered trademark of Crain Communications Inc. CrainsNewsPro.com Get to Know ACI TheJournalist’sSourceonCleaning, Hygiene&Health Get informed perspectivefromthe American Cleaning Institute® representingcleaning product makers and suppliers. Contactusyear-round: [email protected]•202-662-2517 • www.cleaninginstitute.org 1331LSt. NW, Suite 650 •Washington, DC 20005 May 2016 | NewsPro | 3 NewsPro Healthcare May 2016 single pages.indd 3 4/18/16 7:22 PM COVER STORY COURTESY OF DESTINATION DC OF DESTINATION COURTESY HOTO P HEALTH-CARE ISSUES HAVE BECOME STAPLES ON THE ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE. Health Matters Costs, Not Reform, Take Center Stage This Presidential Election Cycle By Dinah Eng xpand Obamacare. Allow health savings accounts. Open the says Julie Rovner, senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News, who door to drug sales from foreign countries. Limit Medicaid. has covered health care through eight presidential campaigns. “is E Cutting through political proposals and rhetoric is never year, there’s a little less emphasis on health care. e debate is about easy, especially in presidential election years, so when the candidates health care costs and drug costs. Health care has become a proxy for take stands on medical issues, health care reporters are usually the other economic anxiety.” ones charged with separating fact from wishful fantasy. Rovner, who spoke on a panel on “Fact-Checking ACA Election Health care has ebbed and owed as a campaign issue since 1988, Year Assertions” at the AHCJ Convention with Jayne O’Donnell, when Congress passed the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act, a health-care policy reporter for USA Today, says the complexities of modest reform bill that had bipartisan backing. Since then, partisan health care make it dicult to analyze candidate assertions on the politics has changed the way campaigns approach policy proposals. issue. “In 2008, John McCain was browbeaten into oering a health- “What candidates say can be true, but not accurate, or as simple care plan when things were gearing up for the Aordable Care Act,” as things seem,” Rovner says. “For example, [Donald] Trump and 4 | May 2016 | NewsPro NewsPro Healthcare May 2016 single pages.indd 4 4/18/16 7:23 PM [Bernie] Sanders talk about letting people buy drugs from outside managing editor for visuals for Vox, says health care has become a the country. smaller story this presidential election year because Obamacare is “You can save money, but the FDA — under both Democratic and fairly entrenched now. Republican presidents — says it’s not safe to buy drugs outside the “Republicans are talking less about repealing it, but you see closed system in the United States. Canadian drug stores are safe, Democrats talking more about it, and how many people have gotten but a website saying they’re selling drugs from a Canadian drug store insurance,” Kli says. “On the Democratic side, health-care plans might not be.” are prominent because [Hillary Rodham] Clinton would keep She notes that recent presidential election years have spotlighted Obamacare and [Bernie] Sanders would replace Obamacare with whatever health-care legislation was trending at the moment. In one government-run plan.” 1992, all candidates had a health-care proposal in response to health ¡e GOP plans, she notes, create less of a debate because reform eorts being pushed by then-President Bill Clinton and First most candidates agree on policies that would leave a lot of people Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. In 1996, the debate was about GOP uninsured. Ohio Gov. John Kasich stood out as an outlier, she adds, Congressional eorts to remake Medicare. for supporting the expansion of Medicaid. By 2008, presidential candidates were talking about the upcoming “¡e biggest place where there’s a schism is with Donald Trump,” ACA, and in 2012, the debate was about whether Obamacare should Kli says. “He’s said he will make sure everyone’s covered, so you be kept or repealed, she adds. think he means everyone will have insurance. But on paper, his plan Whatever the trending concern is, Rovner says political campaigns repeals Obamacare, and allows insurance companies to reject people are “triumphs of words over ideas” that reporters must continually with pre-existing conditions again.” fact check and interpret in the context of what proposals really mean What few candidates talk about is how to make Americans in a realistic framework. healthier, she observes. It’s easier to talk about giving people Placing campaign statements in context at the local

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