Health Care, As Seen Through Twitter

Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

So, that's health care and semantics with the choice of one word. We had a two-word view on health care from a certain Republican South Carolina congressman this week, and now we move to three words. This week, a Web site called FiLife.com launched a Twitter contest to reduce policy on how to fix health care to a mere three words. Some entries so far...

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

Promote Healthy Living and Eat an Apple are two examples.

BLOCK: Another entry focuses on Americans' eating habits.

SIEGEL: Stop Eating McDonald's, it proclaims. Still other three-word entries target our bureaucracy - among them...

BLOCK: Cut Red Tape, No More Lobbyists.

SIEGEL: There are some actual strategies for changing the way medical needs are met, such as: Allow More Competition, Cap Medical Malpractice, More Affordable Medication, Same For All and Make it Universal.

BLOCK: Then comes some entries from people against a health care overhaul. They include these: Quit Being Wusses and Leave It Alone.

SIEGEL: Our staff made up some three-word policy proclamations: Doctors Make Less and Cuban Health Care. We asked for some more three-word health policy statements from people with an interest in the topic. First, from the president of the American Medical Association, Dr. James Rohack.

Dr. JAMES ROHACK (President, American Medical Association): My three words are: Quality Affordable Coverage.

Mr. WENDELL POTTER (Former Health Insurance Executive, Center for Media and Democracy): This is Wendell Potter. I'm senior fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy and a former health insurance executive. My three-word solution is American Health Security.

Mr. ROBERT FARLEY (Reporter, PolitiFact.com): I'm Rob Farley. I'm a reporter with PolitiFact.com. Doesn't Kill Granny.

BLOCK: Three-word summaries of the health care debate. The FiLife contest closes September 16th. Five winners will be announced, and they'll each get a $100 prize.

Copyright ©2009 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.