Reports about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) health care proposal compare her plan with those of fellow Democratic challengers Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and John Edwards (D-NC), but omit any discussion of a single-payer proposal championed by presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH).

While the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times review the details of Clinton’s attempts to reform health care in 1994 and compare and contrast the Clinton-Obama-Edwards health care proposals, all three papers exclude progressive critics of ‘universal health insurance’ coverage and their legislative alternatives.

In fact, Kucinich and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) introduced a single-payer proposal in January 2007. ‘The U.S. National Health Insurance Act’ (HR-676), which has attracted 77 co-sponsors, “would create a publicly financed, privately delivered health care program that uses the already existing Medicare program by expanding and improving it to all U.S. residents.”

Most Americans support single-payer health care. During a Clinton campaign stop in Iowa, the Washington Post reported that the audience favored a single-payer approach.

In keeping with her expressed desire to hold a “conversation with Iowans,” Clinton asked at one point for a show of hands from the audience to see how many would prefer employer-based health insurance, how many would prefer a system in which individuals purchased insurance, with help from the government if necessary, and how many would prefer a system modeled on Medicare. The audience overwhelmingly favored moving toward a Medicare-like system for all Americans.

Support for such a program transcends the Democratic base. According to a 2003 ABC News/Washington Post poll, 62% of Americans support a universal health care system in which everyone is covered “under a program like Medicare run by the government and financed by taxpayers.”

And while Clinton incorporated an expanded Medicare program into her health care proposal, the press excluded progressive voices and choices from their coverage and artificially narrowed the spectrum of political debate.

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