To Counter Republican Attacks, Democrats Developing Message on Health Care Reform
By Susie Madrak Thursday May 14, 2009 10:00amOy. Are Democrats simply incapable of doing the right thing, of choosing the right policies because they are the right policies, and then standing behind them while they educate the public? No, what they invariably do is to hack away at their own policies in a vain attempt to keep the Republicans from beating them up. Don't let them do it again with health care reform:
WASHINGTON — Alarmed at Republican attacks on President Obama’s health care proposals, Senate Democrats huddled Wednesday with White House officials to formulate a response.
Democrats said they felt an urgent need to devise a “message” to answer Republicans assertions that Mr. Obama’s proposals could lead to “a Washington takeover of health care.”
Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said many Democrats felt “unease that we did not have a strategy” to answer the criticism coming from Republican members of Congress and Republican consultants like Frank I. Luntz, an expert on the language of politics.
[...] Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is chairman of the Finance Committee and an architect of the emerging legislation, said Democrats would counter such criticism by insisting that consumers would have an unfettered right to pick doctors and insurers.
“You can choose your own doctor,” Mr. Baucus said. “You can choose your own health plan. There’s total choice here. I do not want to say this defensively, but this is not a big government plan.”
Uh, Max? You just did say it defensively. You're acting as if fixing this massive problem is something you should apologize for.
Mr. Baucus said Mr. Axelrod had offered suggestions on how to communicate, using “words that work” and avoiding “words that don’t work.”
Rather than talk about a mandate requiring individuals or employers to buy insurance, Mr. Baucus said, Democrats intend to emphasize the idea of “shared responsibility.”
"Shared responsibility"? I hope that doesn't mean what it sounds like. Because I swear to God, if the best they have to offer is a mandate, I'm done with these people.
Obama should go on TV and tell the real truth:
"Look, the economy is crashing and burning because health care costs are dragging down businesses and, as a result, families, and we've come up with a plan to fix that which won't require you to spend one red cent out of pocket and won't require you to fill out large amounts of paperwork. Our opponents are calling that socialism, government-run healthcare. Well, that's exactly what they said in 1935 when President Franklin Roosevelt created Social Security. That's what they said in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson created Medicare.
"That's because whenever a president tries to use the power of the government to help you, the people, in your daily life, the opposition tries to scare you.'Oo, big scary government taking over your healthcare!' As if everyone in this country had affordable health coverage already; as if people's claims weren't already being denied or the tests they need not being approved. As if, for example, your private policy's cancer coverage didn't already stop after a limited number of those very expensive treatments.
"Seems to me that the only people who really like the present insurance system are the people who haven't actually had to use it for a serious illness.
"People, this is no longer optional. For the foreseeable future, we simply can't afford the 30% administrative overhead of private insurance for the country as a whole. The economy is bleeding jobs, and health care costs are the single biggest factor. We have to stop the bleeding, and we need to get those jobs back, for you and everyone else.
"No matter what our friends in the opposition tell you, this isn't about choosing your doctor for you. Your doctor will accept this just like any other insurance.
"So I ask for your help and support with this new plan. In exchange for that, I promise you that paying for the proper health care you need will be one less thing your family will have to worry about."
There's your message, morons. Stop apologizing.
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For the Republicans it's all about pushing "fear". And fear can be a very powerful motivator against doing things that actually help people.
The right wing Republicans are cowards-the fear EVERYTHING
"Shared responsibility"? I hope that doesn't mean what it sounds like. Because I swear to God, if the best they have to offer is a mandate, I'm done with these people.
"these people" who be these people?
"swear to God" what does that mean?
push hard on this and we need to call Congress 1.800.828.0498.. to tell them to support the 'will' of the people and more the Corp lobbys to the side!!!!
Repub's will contort this with fear just like the petroleum lobby is pushing against alternative energy!
Go get them....Hate - fear are not American values...
my own medical man told me that the only people satisfied with their health insurance are those who haven't had to use it.
The Democrats still seem to fear the Republicans, often fall to their knees to please the Republicans- even though the Rethugs are out of power!!!! When the Democrats were out of power, the Republicans marginalized and ignored us- i'm beginning to think perhaps we should do ther same to them.
Will any Democrat muster up the balls to tell these bossy Republicans to sit down and shut the f*ck up'????
Try to make the most with the least amount of effort. I think they've burnt out.
I can imagine Al Franken doing that.
But, guess what? :)
is it's personally painless when all the illusions about what these great people and personalities and idols are going to do for everyone finally is shattered.
I don't watch American Idol.
I've been a member since birth.
nope...
they like their balls plain.
Well put, Susie. When are politicians going to get it? The more honest and plain-speaking you are, the more the public will respect you and probably agree with you.
Now that it's too late and the GOP has already framed the discussion to the advantage of their tiny minority?
And what is the Democratic answer? Give Blue Cross everything they demand and ignore the plight of their actual constituents.
I have a wife and three kids, none of us has had insurance for six years. We will never be able to afford it, so we will never have access to health care. I was quoted $950 a month! The Democratic Party is gleefully screwing us while they take millions of dollars in bribes from the insurance companies.
sorrreee bout yer family, tho...
reeeely...
Fix it?
Who you talking to, boy?
BravoSusie, you couldn't have made it more clear. Social Security and Medicare does help. The rich need to pay their "fair share" and the health industry will recover from it's 30% illness too. Bravo! Keep repeating the message! Keep telling the truth...The sponges will eventually absorb.
Dr. Welby
The right-wingers are right. We shouldn't have anything socialized or publicly-funded!
Hey, millionaires -- get ready to have your homes robbed and your children murdered in the street (no police force or courts -- those are publicly-funded!). Get ready for your businesses to fail (no corporate law protections or public highways on which to ship your products or provide commutes for your workers, or an FDIC to protect your investments or payroll checks -- those are publicly-funded!). Get ready for other countries to invade America (no more Defense Department -- private militias and contractors only!)
The notion that we don't need any shared resources or responsibilities is not only dumb -- it's un-American.
I vote for not taxing the rich. In return they lose their right to vote. They have to pay for their own police protection. They want power lines and water lines going to their residences, well it's gonna cost you, and at a %35 profit for the city, hey it's capitalism. They also have to pay for their own maintenance. They want to drive, fine, we get to place toll booths at the exits of their estates, I mean, we have to charge them for using our roads right plus factor in %35 profit again. Their house catches on fire, hire the fire department. They want the military to protect their boats from Somalians and other "interests", hire Xe.
Feel free to add anything else.
Don't forget all that water that the fire department would have to use.
That would fall under "cost of materials". We would also need to charge them for the gas used to drive to and from their estates, plus maintenance on the fire trucks, washing/replacing of uniforms. We would of course have to pass along the cost of operating the fire station and throw in an extra %35, since after all, that's what stockholders demand in profits every quarter.
Senator says CIA made up dates on torture briefing
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/14/senato...
you're getting greased up to take it up the pooper again, from big business.
Another big outlay of public money to private industry and free access to your heinie.
No wonder John Q. Public is named "John".
use lube this time...
How many of you have tried to calm a child or a dog afraid of the thunder?
You can't do it. You can't tell them there is nothing to be afraid of.
The Pukes know it, and they prey on the stupid people's stoopit fears...
The only rhetor on the left with the bones to defeat Luntz's minions would be George Lakoff, but he's too smart--too well-educated, too wordy, too subtle--to catch on with the lumpen-proles in cable-tv land...
"Socialism" ooohhh...so evil....
Every single thing that a right wingnut does every day has a touch of 'socialism' in it....
Name it and we can find some aspect of it that the government has used tax revenue to allow them to have/use it...
Yes and to head off the dumb@sses... even breathing to an extent...ever hear of the clean air act (though its been hijacked by corporate greed & decimated by republican malfeasance - despite its origins) Try to imagine breathing air from London circa Industrial Revolution (late 19th century & beginning of 20th) times all day every day... If polluters had a 'free market' with a non-existent invisible hand 'watching' over things....that's exactly what you would have now
Just making sure...everyone 'gets that'....
they're at risk of ticking off the people who are most important to them: their corporate donors. The Dems are in a serious bind. They know their constituents are demanding they fix our broken health insurance system, but to do so could cost them big money, connections, the revolving door, etc.
Just another reason we need to reform Congress and campaign funding right now.
i'm not sure why this does NOT get more attention maybe because it would get misrepresented by both
political sides/financial elites. china is moving toward a universal healthCare system. YOU know that country where corporations/economic/financial elites are outsourcing jobs to. CHINA tried a' market oriented system BUT soaring fees plunged many into POVERTY and made medical services less affordable
to ordinary citizens. CHINA needs it's people to spend also. with the universal system people will need
to save less. the system they are talking about is a system where the public will have some responsibilities. JANuary 2009 chinese government announced $850 billion yuan to improve healthCare.
HOW are we going to compete in this wonderful global economy model if we can't compete?
Bayh is full of shit. He doesn't want to piss off Eli Lilly and have all their money go to someone who'll be running against him.
frank luntz is in the business of linguistics of deception. he does study groups to see what works for the highest bidder. it's very effective as people want to be lead but beyond that there's a smaller group of financial elites and their groupies that do NOT want change. the healthCare is NOT broken for them. they don't want us to compete here in the states the financial/economic elite are trying to get established in second and third world countries. especially the countries that show or currently have infrastructure and little if any RULEs. HEALTHcare for all will makes us more competitive but with RULES. we need to get behind healthCare reform. that's what OBAMA is telling us we need to be heard and heard loud.
...and damn straight and simple.
This is do or die for me. This won't happen again. We have more momentum in our direction than ever before, and probably more than we will ever have again in my lifetime.
We NEED to get the message out there on the TV and radio waves TEN TO ONE, and simple enough that even the morons in this ass-backwards country can understand.
Rest assured the lobbyists and right wing are going to be hitting this subject to the brain-dead public to persuade them that it's better to have tax breaks that they will never receive and NO medical coverage so the fat cats can continue raping them and leaving them to die in the streets. They WILL believe.
So, get the message out there TEN TIMES to every one stinking deceptive lie that the opposition plays...cause our nation is one of morons and simpletons. They hear it once...they believe it as gospel. If it's complex...it goes right over their heads. They don't have time for "complex". We are a nation of morons..and simple sound bites penetrate the thick skull of our citizenry.
As someone above said, too late, the repubs and health insurance co's and pharmaceuticals have been doing that for quite a while.
Also look at what is happening with the banking mess. We keep throwing money at them hoping the bankers will be satiated to stop the depression they created. Timmeh is promising to add regulation and oversight to the derivatives market instead of abolishing it altogether. Let's also not forget what regulation meant for the SEC during the chimp years, and how one of the people who looked the other way is now working for Obama (I forget her name). So basically their solution to this mess is to throw money at the banking class in the hopes of keeping the current system alive for a while longer, and add regulations which will prolly be ignored given enough bribes instead of doing proper reforms.
There just isn't the political will to do what's needed. Baucus and Bayh demonstrated that nicely.
Why aren't the people, doctors, nurses, citizens, who will be directly affected by healthcare reform, not be given a seat at the table? Oh, forgive me. They don't have millions to spend on lobbyists. My bad.
I thought it pretty shitty of Baucus to hold committee meetings, and not include even one representative of single-payer healthcare. It's deja vous, ala, Cheney's energy task force.
"Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said many Democrats felt “unease that we did not have a strategy” to answer the criticism coming from Republican members of Congress and Republican consultants like Frank I. Luntz, an expert on the language of politics."
WTF?? What's wrong with have a strategy containing FACTS?
Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said many Democrats felt “unease that we did not have a strategy” to answer the criticism ...
i remember that bayh was not much of a helper recently... funny he should be so concerned with democratic strategy...
If a single payer government run system is good enough for the government why can't we have the same.
Time to stand up and be heard, this is such bull.
In Missouri the Democratic Governor Jay Nixon worked out a plan with the hospitals that they would pay over 52 million dollars for the Medicaid coverage of 35,000 lower income people who were cut from Medicaid by a Republican Governor, Matt, "son of Roy" Blunt some four years ago. With the contribution from the Federal Government the State of Missouri taxpayers would not have had to pay one cent toward this important and cost saving coverage. The hospitals figured that there contribution would be returned by a saving on costly hospital and emergency room charges they would never collect from the non-insured working poor for the Medicaid contribution. By the way the hospital association and its membership are not know for their Democratic Party affiliation.
The Republicans who control the Legislature have refused to pass this measure. They would rather leave the Federal money to some other state and keep the cost of health care high in Missouri by ensuring that those without health care use the hospitals as their primary care vehicle.
So much for Republicans wanting government to be run like a business. A canard if there ever was one. They just can't stand to see a success for the Democratic Governor, so much so that they'll throw 35,000 people and the health care industry under the bus.
If Abe Lincoln were alive today, he'd be a Democrat, probably Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower too.
It just boils down to the fact that the health of people who can't get insurance or can't afford to pay the moneychangers of the healthcare insurance industry money or a pound of flesh have no reason to live. What boggles my mind is how few people comment on the healthcare blogs here. I hope and pray to my nonbelieving self that we all here believe healthcare is a right from womb to tomb, but us believing isn't enough. We need to make sure that everyone on the street gets it and that Congress won't sell us out again. Why must someone make a fortune off of the pain and suffering of others? It's one thing for healthcare workers who work 24/7 to treat and care for people to make a living, it's another thing for AHIP's Karen to make a fortune for mismanaging the delivery of care. It's sad that the Blue Dogs are too worried about losing lobbyists' money to care for the health and welfare of the poor sick guy who only has a vote to cast and no money for the politican's coffer. We need to take all of the money out of politics so that the people who are in office are there because they want to help inprove the lives of their constituents. I think that the Obamas need to have an emergency room night before their next poetry/jazz night where they go and see the misery in the ER's of the US. I know Michele was a hospital administrator. However, in my book, the only time that you would ever call an administrator in a crisis is to defuse a bomb or to negotiate with a suicide bomber. They don't listen and oftentimes just don't get what medicine is. We heard what community organizers do and respect them. Now, we want the President to see what it's like to be an uninsured sick American.
I have just about given up on the dimbocrats. They have all the power, yet quake at the sight of the laughable idiotic opposition. But, that's what happens when you try to play republican-lite.
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