Another Botched Health Care Debate
It's amazing and sad to watch as skilled a communicator as Barack Obama do no better in communicating his health care reform proposal than Bill and Hillary Clinton did more than 15 years ago. Weren't there some lessons he could have learned from the previous health care debacle, some pitfalls to avoid? Did he really think that the opposition would be silent, that they wouldn't try to make the debate over how government-run health care will be as mismanaged as the Post Office, or how the private insurance industry will be abolished, or how the plan requires mandatory euthanasia for the elderly? (OK, maybe he couldn't have anticipated that last argument but really, should he or anybody else be surprised at how low the right-wing will stoop to hand Obama a major defeat?)
The irony is that every poll of the public's top concerns I've ever seen going back many years has listed health care in the top two or three. Everybody knows health care costs too much. Everybody knows not enough people have adequate coverage. Everybody is pretty convinced that the medical/insurance industry is ripping us off. Everybody knows that the best way to get the economy moving again is to lower health care costs for small businesses so they can hire more people instead of seeing their profits shrivel as employee insurance costs skyrocket.
So does Obama's plan solve these problems? I haven't a clue. But I do know that lots of angry people are showing up at town meetings and roasting the President's plan (whether these outbursts are contrived or not is beside the point - why aren't the Democrats flooding the town meetings with their supporters?). I know that people like Sara Palin and even smarter Republicans like Newt Ginrich are pushing the notion - an outright lie - that Obama's plan would create "death panels," government bureaucrats who would decide if granny deserves health care or whether we should just let her croak.
I know these things because the right has completely hijacked the issue and, with a big assist from the mainstream media, has drowned out Obama's message, whatever it is.
Yes, Obama's plan is complicated and dense, but is it really too dense to compress into a short, three line elevator pitch that everyone could grasp? Its hundreds of pages have given the Republican's a target-rich environment, allowing them to pull a simple thread or extract a tiny nugget in the plan and claim that it will cause the end of civilization as we know it.
And once again, the right is proving to be far better at getting their message out than Democrats. Why? Because they're using fear. They're scaring people, and it's a huge motivator.
What Obama needs to do is scare people right back. He needs to tell Americans that the real danger we face is doing nothing to address health care. He needs to let people know that without health care reform, more and more people are going to lose coverage. He's got to bring a sense of urgency to getting this thing passed. "Hope you don't get swine flu this fall because if we don't pass health care, there might not be any vaccine available, and good luck finding a doctor to see you. It's play for pay, folks, and if you can't afford a doctor, you'll have to stay home and hope for the best."
But first he needs to tell us what his health care plan does, in simple, easy to understand terms. It will lower costs - how? It will make insurance forms and coverage easy to understand. It will give people added security - tell us Mr. President, how? And it will somehow bring down the cost of medicine and insurance coverage. Rinse and repeat.
It's not hard. But if he loses this one he shouldn't blame Rush Limbaugh. He has no one to blame but himself and his speech writers.
The irony is that every poll of the public's top concerns I've ever seen going back many years has listed health care in the top two or three. Everybody knows health care costs too much. Everybody knows not enough people have adequate coverage. Everybody is pretty convinced that the medical/insurance industry is ripping us off. Everybody knows that the best way to get the economy moving again is to lower health care costs for small businesses so they can hire more people instead of seeing their profits shrivel as employee insurance costs skyrocket.
So does Obama's plan solve these problems? I haven't a clue. But I do know that lots of angry people are showing up at town meetings and roasting the President's plan (whether these outbursts are contrived or not is beside the point - why aren't the Democrats flooding the town meetings with their supporters?). I know that people like Sara Palin and even smarter Republicans like Newt Ginrich are pushing the notion - an outright lie - that Obama's plan would create "death panels," government bureaucrats who would decide if granny deserves health care or whether we should just let her croak.
I know these things because the right has completely hijacked the issue and, with a big assist from the mainstream media, has drowned out Obama's message, whatever it is.
Yes, Obama's plan is complicated and dense, but is it really too dense to compress into a short, three line elevator pitch that everyone could grasp? Its hundreds of pages have given the Republican's a target-rich environment, allowing them to pull a simple thread or extract a tiny nugget in the plan and claim that it will cause the end of civilization as we know it.
And once again, the right is proving to be far better at getting their message out than Democrats. Why? Because they're using fear. They're scaring people, and it's a huge motivator.
What Obama needs to do is scare people right back. He needs to tell Americans that the real danger we face is doing nothing to address health care. He needs to let people know that without health care reform, more and more people are going to lose coverage. He's got to bring a sense of urgency to getting this thing passed. "Hope you don't get swine flu this fall because if we don't pass health care, there might not be any vaccine available, and good luck finding a doctor to see you. It's play for pay, folks, and if you can't afford a doctor, you'll have to stay home and hope for the best."
But first he needs to tell us what his health care plan does, in simple, easy to understand terms. It will lower costs - how? It will make insurance forms and coverage easy to understand. It will give people added security - tell us Mr. President, how? And it will somehow bring down the cost of medicine and insurance coverage. Rinse and repeat.
It's not hard. But if he loses this one he shouldn't blame Rush Limbaugh. He has no one to blame but himself and his speech writers.
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