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PrintWASHINGTON — If there's a rhetorical knockout blow in the fight over health care, neither side has found it.
President Barack Obama and his opponents are searching for concise, focused and compelling messages that will win over the voters who polls show remain up for grabs.
Obama and his foes are going at it hard during the congressional break in August, a raucous, pivotal month when the public and lawmakers are deciding whether to support his drive to reshape the U.S. health care system.
At a town hall meeting this past week in Portsmouth, N.H., Obama said, "If you don't have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you do have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need."
He said people could keep their current doctors and health plans and not have to wait in lines. He promised his plan would help the economy without worsening the federal deficit. He denied it would encourage euthanasia of older people or cuts in their government-funded Medicare coverage.
His comments — a jumble of playing offense and defense — showed how tricky it is to concisely explain how people would benefit from reshaping the $2.5 trillion health system. The search for the right message is complicated by all those who, according to polls, like the general idea of an overhaul but are fairly satisfied with their own health coverage.
Obama and his strategists are "on their heels a little bit right now, but I don't think it's a permanent condition," said Chris Jennings, a Democratic lobbyist. He advised President Bill Clinton on health care and was among several Democrats who said the White House message must get clearer. "I think they're recalculating and refocusing."
Republicans and other opponents have had it easier, in a way. It usually is simpler to attack than defend. Most notably, they have sprinkled their advertising and speeches with familiar, poll-tested catch-phrases.
A TV ad the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has aired in about 20 states warned of "inflated taxes, swelling deficits and expanded government control over your health." House Republican leaders sent lawmakers home for the summer break with packets lambasting Obama's "government takeover of health care."
Former hospital executive Rick Scott, who heads the big-spending Conservatives for Patients' Rights, distributed a memo citing "less choice, long waiting lists and denial of needed treatments for patients."
Such attack lines have a strong appeal to conservatives who comprise the core of the Republican Party. It is unclear how persuasive they are to centrist voters.
"What you're watching is a developing process" in which both sides are refining their messages, said David Winston, a Republican pollster who has worked with his party's congressional leaders. "This issue has been extraordinarily difficult to understand over the years."
Supporters and opponents have been preparing their health messages for a long time, relying on polling, focus groups, testing of ads and plain old experience.
Reflecting a consensus that Democratic rhetoric during Clinton's failed health care reform effort of 1993 and 1994 focused too heavily on the uninsured, the White House has stepped up arguments that its proposals would help those already covered.
Every word can make a difference. Democrats talk about "affordability," not "cost containment," which might suggest cuts in services. "Coverage for all" is better than "universal" coverage, which has echoes of government-controlled care.
Resurgent Republic, a Republican strategy organization, is advising party members to focus on concerns that a health overhaul could increase budget deficits, raise taxes and push people into government-run coverage. The group is urging Republicans to propose alternative proposals — they have offered several — because people's top economic worry is their rising health costs.
During Congress' August vacation, those opposed to an overhaul have disrupted some Democratic lawmakers' town hall meetings. Many see it as a crucial month as legislators gauge whether the uproar is orchestrated — as Obama backers insist — or if people are lumping the roughly $1 trillion health effort together with the unpopular Wall Street and Detroit bailouts and the economic stimulus package into a gigantic symbol of big government run amok.
In an interview, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said the public thinks changes are needed and the White House has a strong argument to address that desire.
"If I had one line to say, it's that we want to bring stability and security to health care so people could know they can count on it and it will be there when they need it," he said.
For both sides, the weeks are dwindling to get their messages right.
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Comments
Subject: healthcare
A few things I'd like to see the government do about health care...
1. Do away with state regulated health care insurance policies.
Develop a Federal regulatory agency and oversee practices and procedures of health care insurance policy issuers. (Details can be worked up via focus groups comprised of the best minds we can find in the medical administration community.) Facets of physical, mental and dental are to be included.
2. Do away with Medicaid and Medicare and use a modified Federal health providing safety net to American citizens through the expansion of VA Hospital/Doctor services to all seniors, indigent, disabled and Veterans.
3. Form a liaison committee to coordinate public, private, church and nonprofit sector health and human care service activities.
This liaison committee can work to make the schooling and certification of doctors more affordable and reduce "management at-risk" expenses aka malpractice insurance and excessive lawsuits.
4. The US government should run factories where government employees manufacture medical supplies and medical equipment.
5. The Federal government should also consider producing generic medications and regulate costs of the more expensive drugs being produced by big pharma.
6. The federal government can encourage recruitment of an at-home "humanitarian program" where college students would receive free/minimal cost training in the medical field and commit a minimum number of years to public health care employment.
7. Actively round up all illegal aliens and return them to their country of origin,
Of special note as we hash out the government's role in health care and the insurance business: We should not forget the important role the voluntary health and human care service agencies provide. A model being used in Wales is as follows:
("Key issues
("Key issues
("Key issues.........
æ Stronger partnership working within the voluntary sector and between the sectors
æ Better and consistent commissioning
æ Promoting self care and independence æ Improving access to services for disadvantaged and rural communities
æ Strengthening volunteering in Health & Social Care
æ Developing social enterprises in Health & Social Care
æ Integrated workforce planning
æ Reducing admissions and improved discharge
æ Research & development")
source and more:
Designed to Add Value - a third dimension A strategic direction for the voluntary & community sector in supporting Health & Social Care
http://www.gavowales.org.uk/Health_and_S...
I NEVER HAD TO WAIT FOR A SURGERY FOR MONTHS, AS THE SPECIAL INTEREST LOBBY TRIES TO IMPLY? EMERGENCY PROCEDURES WERE DEALT WITH IMMEDIATELY. One should remember that there a large majority of nefarious special interest groups, who enjoy the status quo and will fight with propaganda and lies against their profiteering. Another place where I lived was Australia, where the health care system is equally as great as England. One year I was employed by Australian Main Roads as a junior surveyor and stepped into a fire ants nest, ending up in hospital. Once again my cost was--ZERO--because I paid into the system. There is something very calming, without the worry of billing statements pouring through the mailbox demanding money and threatening you with an attorney.
Since the inception of the European common market and the directive of open borders for cheap labor pouring into the industrialized nations, they have been overwhelmed by the impoverished needing health care. Such conditions didn't exist before the 1960's, as the their was no mass immigration and waiting periods. In America today and since the newest waves of legal and illegal immigration, costs to medicate these people have sky rocketed who have never paid one penny into the system. Each previous government never have restricted immigration, but allowed taxpayers to pay for their health care and welfare benefits. Each year approximately 1.5 million new immigrants are granted work visas and many become public charges.
Now Obama is insisting on yet another AMNESTY, which will be even costlier to the American taxpayers, so says the Heritage foundation. American taxpayers should not have to subsidize US businesses, which has been happening for years? A large majority of pariah corporate executives, do not want any restrictions on foreign national workers, that is why they have tried to kill a mandated E-Verify identity data base, to extract all illegal immigrants from the working environment.
That SANCTUARY STATES like California must rescind illegal immigrant refuge policies. That President Obama's health care renewal plan—WILL--attract millions more impoverished people from around the world. That they can join with the 20 plus million already here, to get free medical care under the Democrats law now passing through Congress.
Observe this PETITION to STOP any health care to illegal immigrants at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/nohealt...
The Special Interest lobbyists are spending $millions, spilling their lies to the American people. So many lies that they have likely disrupted any chance of Universal health care. They have lied so much about the Canada system, and paid off so many people to give birth to their lies, that the gullible population believes them. The wealthy insurers want no change, so they can ring every dollar out of a system.wrought with fraud and corruption In the long run cost will explode and only the upper class will have the money to buy care. Lose your job and even those people will join the millions out of work unable to pay for medical care for their family.
The Status Quo are selling propaganda and downright lies, across the TV, radio bandwidths. LIES! Lies and more lies about both Health care and illegal immigration. The facts are that President Obama has an objective of introducing a Canadian and European type single payer system.
In truth it's like a nationwide--MEDICARE--like all senior citizens receive now. It's only difference their will be--NO CO-PAYS, DEDUCTIONS, NO PREMIUMS AND NO PRE -EXISTING CONDITIONS. The Special interest lobbyists, who work for the wealthy health care industry, are using every means possible to derail any kind of Universal health care. We must remember the British/English, French, German, Danish and other have been well accepted by their population for decades, with no worries about bankruptcy or Debt collectors calling. My health care in England, was first class when I lived in there, without financial worries and no distractions from profiteering insurance companies.As a child and a young man I choose my doctor and received eye and dentistry visits free of charges.
Cost of Living in the United Kingdom
http://www.expatforum.com/articles/cost-...