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The Beltway Inside Out - Beating Right-Wing Messaging |
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The right-wing attack on health care is coming into full view. Not surprisingly, they’ve settled on a tried and too-often true strategy: scare the @@#% out people. Health care reform will be defined as a “government-takeover.” The result of government-run health care will be long lines, waiting for treatment, not getting the treatment you need, not being able to choose your doctor or hospital. Health care reform is government rationing and Washington bureaucrats running the health care system.
While It started this winter with Rush Limbaugh’s reaction to the health proposals in the Presidents Economic Recovery bill, the message was given a huge boost a few days ago when Republican message meister Frank Luntz briefed Republicans in the House on “The Language of Health Care 2009: The 10 Rules for Stopping the ‘Washington Takeover’ of Healthcare.”
Luntz’s message is already being used by Republicans in the Senate and House. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint published an article this week in which he said: “That’s how a government take-over of your health care will try to get costs under control: cheap, outdated treatments, long waiting lists, and low-tech hospitals. It won’t take long before families realize the true costs of such a plan aren’t counted in dollars and sense.”
Now Rick Scott, the disgraced former head of Columbia/HCA, is running ads on TV talking about people in England who have died because of government health care.
Will this message work? Not if we get our message out in response. The big problem with the Republican strategy to, as Luntz said, “kill what they’re [Democrats] trying to do,” is revealed in Luntz’s memo: “…because the American people blame the insurance companies more than almost anybody else for why health care is such a mess in this country right now.”
Everyday people in America get their health care denied by insurance company bureaucrats, directed by insurance company CEOs who make millions of dollars a year, flying around in their corporate jets, paid for by hiking your premiums, denying you the care you need and coming in-between you and your doctor.
The American people know that. We have to remind them.
Take a look at this exchange between me and John Roberts, the host of CNN’s American Morning, last week (you can also watch it here):
ROBERTS: “… The ad campaign is being run by the same people that did the Swift Vote Veterans for Truth against John Kerry in 2004. But he makes the point that government-sponsored health care could take us down the road that some other countries have seen where there had been bad outcomes.
Let’s just run a little bit of his commercial.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK SCOTT: Before Congress rushes to overhaul health care, listen to those who already have a government-run health care.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In Britain, Katie Braquel (ph) denied the Pap test that could have saved her from cervical cancer. Kate Spall (ph), her mother suffered on a wait list as her renal cancer became terminal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Now the big difference because Britain’s national health service, the doctors actually work for the government. Here we’ve got private health care. But is there something to be said for this idea that once the government gets involved that there may be, you know, limiting access to services, capping fees, things like that and it won’t be as good a system that we have now.
KIRSCH: Well, first of all, John, how many stories have you ran over the years that private health insurance companies with those same kind of stories, denying care saying we can’t pay for this. It’s experimental. This happens across the United States.
ROBERTS: Every time I go to the doctor…
KIRSCH: Right. Every time that you go to the doctor, Americans get health care denied in this country all the time. And we need to fix the American system. That’s what we’re talking about here and no one is talking about a government health care system.
What we’re saying is: if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. That’s what the president has said, that’s what the congressional leadership had said. You can keep it. But we’re also going to set some rules so the private health insurance companies can’t deny you because of pre-existing conditions, can’t raise your rates when you’re sick when you’re old, or a woman of childbearing age.
…
You have a choice of public health insurance plan. These are for profit companies. They lose money when they pay for care. We want a public health insurer whose bottom line is good health.
The key messages here are:
- Turn the tables on their argument: focus on how insurance companies now deny are every day;
- Talk about fixing health care in America;
- Reassure people: you can keep your health insurance if you like it. That’s the only answer we need to the “government-run” rhetoric or the discussion of other countries;
- Focus on our solutions: making rules so that insurance companies can’t put profits before people and giving you a choice of keeping your insurance or a public health insurance plan so you’re not a the mercy of private insurers.
What you should NOT do is argue about whether health care is really bad in other countries. DON’T GO THERE!!! Just turn the tables on them. No matter how good you think your arguments are, or how much you might want to attack their lies about Canada or England, you can’t win that argument because even having the argument reinforces people’s fears.
Instead make it clear: nobody is talking about a government takeover - except those who want to protect insurance company profits so that they can keep denying you care and coming between you and your doctor.
Make no mistake about it - this will be at the center of the public debate. We can win but only if we get our message out strongly and consistently, every time the other side attacks.
Richard Kirsch is the National Campaign Manager of Health Care for America Now.
(also posted at the NOW! blog)
