To Counter Republican Attacks, Democrats Developing Message on Health Care Reform
Oy. 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.
