At Last
At last, Republicans have a healthcare plan. Carefully crafted by master spinner Frank Luntz, their plan is how to kill the Democratic healthcare plan.
President Obama has made health care his top legislative issue. He wants a plan that provides affordable health care for every American. Polls show that the American people like that idea and feel it can’t come too soon.
Of course, on an issue where the concerns of average people are at odds with a profit-making industry, the GOP feels compelled to step in and protect the industry.
This is in their tradition. It’s why they fought Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Often there are repercussions at the polls, but Republicans must be true to their principals, or at least the ones who fund their campaigns.
I, for one, am flabbergasted that Obama and this Congress s are this close to what we’ve been dreaming of and hallucinating about ever since President Truman first proposed universal health care in 1948.
We’re almost there, and it’s kind of scary.
You know how I first knew we might actually win? This week when Karen Ignagni, head honcho of the insurance lobby, practically begged the Congress to slap the industry with new regulations, forcing them to behave. “We have to have a complete overhaul of the rules,” she implored. Stop us before we gouge again! There wasn’t a dry eye among onlookers or the Senate Finance Committee.
Little wonder that Republicans want our dysfunctional healthcare system to stay just the way it is, even though it bankrupts families and leaves 46 million without coverage. America is the only country in the world to use a business model to provide health care. The purpose of business is to make a profit. Billions in profit. Now those profits are at risk.
Enter Frank Luntz, silver-tongued devil who can make “pre-existing condition” sound like you won the lottery. He gave desperate Congressional Republicans a 26-page memo telling them now to stop legislation that everyone wants. Pretend to be “vocally and passionately on the side of reform”, he advises, but then mislead like crazy with arguments like these:
· “It could lead to the government rationing care, making people stand in line.” (46 million people are asking where the line forms so they can get in it).
· “Scare people. Especially about their children.” (I don’t think this involves Bristol Palin, but it might).
· “Leave Obama out of it.” Luntz concedes the President is too popular even for smoke & mirrors to work.
· “It could lead to the government setting standards of care. Do you want a bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor?” Interesting he should ask. With our current system, it’s the insurance company standing between patients and their doctors. In her testimony to the Senate Finance Committee this week, Dr. Margaret Flowers observed that “health insurance administrators are practicing medicine without a medical license.”
What Republicans worry about most is the “public option” that Democrats consider essential to genuine reform. GOP leaders told reporters that government-run coverage would drive private insurers out of business. The government, they complain, could undercut private insurers with lower prices…
That’s their best argument against?
Better get back to the Luntz playbook: “Let’s talk about those long lines in Canada…”
Anyone in Canada want to trade their healthcare system for ours?
Didn’t think so.
Say goodnight, Frank.
President Obama has made health care his top legislative issue. He wants a plan that provides affordable health care for every American. Polls show that the American people like that idea and feel it can’t come too soon.
Of course, on an issue where the concerns of average people are at odds with a profit-making industry, the GOP feels compelled to step in and protect the industry.
This is in their tradition. It’s why they fought Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Often there are repercussions at the polls, but Republicans must be true to their principals, or at least the ones who fund their campaigns.
I, for one, am flabbergasted that Obama and this Congress s are this close to what we’ve been dreaming of and hallucinating about ever since President Truman first proposed universal health care in 1948.
We’re almost there, and it’s kind of scary.
You know how I first knew we might actually win? This week when Karen Ignagni, head honcho of the insurance lobby, practically begged the Congress to slap the industry with new regulations, forcing them to behave. “We have to have a complete overhaul of the rules,” she implored. Stop us before we gouge again! There wasn’t a dry eye among onlookers or the Senate Finance Committee.
Little wonder that Republicans want our dysfunctional healthcare system to stay just the way it is, even though it bankrupts families and leaves 46 million without coverage. America is the only country in the world to use a business model to provide health care. The purpose of business is to make a profit. Billions in profit. Now those profits are at risk.
Enter Frank Luntz, silver-tongued devil who can make “pre-existing condition” sound like you won the lottery. He gave desperate Congressional Republicans a 26-page memo telling them now to stop legislation that everyone wants. Pretend to be “vocally and passionately on the side of reform”, he advises, but then mislead like crazy with arguments like these:
· “It could lead to the government rationing care, making people stand in line.” (46 million people are asking where the line forms so they can get in it).
· “Scare people. Especially about their children.” (I don’t think this involves Bristol Palin, but it might).
· “Leave Obama out of it.” Luntz concedes the President is too popular even for smoke & mirrors to work.
· “It could lead to the government setting standards of care. Do you want a bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor?” Interesting he should ask. With our current system, it’s the insurance company standing between patients and their doctors. In her testimony to the Senate Finance Committee this week, Dr. Margaret Flowers observed that “health insurance administrators are practicing medicine without a medical license.”
What Republicans worry about most is the “public option” that Democrats consider essential to genuine reform. GOP leaders told reporters that government-run coverage would drive private insurers out of business. The government, they complain, could undercut private insurers with lower prices…
That’s their best argument against?
Better get back to the Luntz playbook: “Let’s talk about those long lines in Canada…”
Anyone in Canada want to trade their healthcare system for ours?
Didn’t think so.
Say goodnight, Frank.
posted by Victor Kamber | 11:49 AM
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