Last week the Cleveland Plain Dealer had a story on why kids in Ohio who are eligible for Medicaid or other government health insurance don't sign up for it. While the reporter can be faulted for not actually talking to families that don't sign up for coverage, at least she is looking at this issue.  All too often it seems reporters assume that if coverage is available, people will flock to sign up for it. The assumption that the only thing standing in the way of universal coverage is the cost of insurance is not supported by the facts but it underlies much of the current health care debate.

Perhaps one of the unintended consequences of the SCHIP debate is that some of these assumptions are being examined and health care reporters are starting to learn some facts about health care issues. For instance, at the beginning of the SCHIP debate, almost every description of the program featured some variation of the line that this program was for "low-income" kids whose families "couldn't afford insurance." As I've been reading the news coverage of this issue, though, it seems that reporters are becoming a little more educated and reporting that this is a program for middle-class kids and adults and that many people in the eligibility range can afford insurance. While we are likely to see an expanded SCHIP program when this debate is over, maybe we can claim a small victory in that the health care debate is a little more factual due to our efforts.