Earlier this week, United Healthcare made major news by announcing its intent to pull out of Obamacare. The story mostly went missing from all but one domestic Spanish-language network.
Univision and Telemundo's domestic news coverage this week has focused largely on DACApalooza and on this week's crescendo to the presidential race- the New York primary. The only national Spanish-language network to cover the story was Mega Noticiero. The only time devoted anywhere to coverage of the nation's largest insurer pulling out of Obamacare were these 27 seconds:
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, ANCHOR, MEGATV: The company United Health Care, the largest health insurance company in the country, wants to withdraw from Obamacare. As its justification, the company alleges that this year it calculates losses of $650 million dollars. For next year it will only retain the sale of Obamacare in only a few states.
Credit goes to María Elvira Salazar for reporting the story straight-up without an agenda or preachy editorializing. Shame on the other networks for this blatant act of bias by omission.
The record should reflect that Univision, in particular, has advocated for Obamacare, diminished religious-liberty arguments against the law's onerous mandates, and partnered with other entities in order to promote enrollment (to the point of winning an award from Planned Parenthood!), as seen in the video below.
Viewers of both Univision and Telemundo's newscasts deserve to know about these major disruptions within the healthcare markets- especially those who might currently be United customers and are now especially vulnerable to cuts to their coverage if not outright drops.
If you like your biased news coverage, you can keep your biased news coverage.
