Jonathan Cohn’s bright idea: hey, let’s talk up HCR reform
TNR’s Jonathan Cohn thinks Democrats should try telling the American public the advantages of the new HCR bill.
Ever hear that before? Thought so.
The people are just confused about HCR, says Cohn, and new ads could straighten them out. Here’s an example of his reasoning [emphasis mine]:
But the public’s frustration with health care reform reflects, among other things, a lot of confusion. In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, for example, 30 percent of seniors thought the new law will give a Medicare panel authority to make life-or-death treatment decisions and 39 percent thought it would diminish the benefits that Medicare guarantees to all seniors. (Large numbers were also uncertain whether these false claims were true.)
This says far more about Cohn’s own confusion than it does about anyone else’s. Cohn, like many partisans on the left, thinks it is self-evident to any thinking person—or regular reader of TNR, which is tantamount to the same thing in his eyes—that “death panels” are a scurrilous and transparently absurd falsehood, or that Medicare will obviously remain untouched, and that the American people’s doubt about either proposition is an example of ignorance about the truth and a result of misleading conservative propaganda.
The persistence of this idea among the left is puzzling, as is the persistence of the notion that the Democrats haven’t explained the benefits enough, and that more explaining will somehow help. It won’t, for the following reasons:
(1) people need to see results, not be promised them, especially when trust in Congress and politicians (and their promises) is at an all-time low.
(2) the arguments about the drawbacks of the HCR bill are not mere Republican hyperbole, easily countered by hyperbole on the other side: they have legs, they are real, and they have not been countered in an effective, convincing, and substantive manner.
The comments to Cohn’s article are revealing. The first one states:
Jonathan, you are right that arguing the benefits would seem a good strategy. The problem is the common sense understanding that with every benefit comes a cost.
Common sense? What’s that?
The second comment is more typical of the mindset on the left, the one otherwise known as elitist and cynical:
HCR must be sold to the public like soap, with simple themes repeated over and over.
But the American people, unfortunately for the Democrats, seem to have developed a certain amount of sales resistance.
I note that in just a few second commercial, shilling for and praising Obamacare, and telling Seniors that they should pay no mind to nay sayers because “‘cause good things were comin,” Andy Griffith used up a large chunk of the credibility he had built up over many years of acting, and–according to polls–drastically reduced any residual popularity he might have had (see http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20012216-503544.html).
Newsflash to Democrats: the dogs don’t like your dog food.
It’s that simple.
It’s not that we are confused, it’s that we are…well…just stupid. All you had to do to understand that was watch the peace-loving people of the SEIU, NAACP and fellow travelers at the rally in DC today. Why, there were even Unicorns, Butterflies and Rainbows. Seriously, though, a couple was interviewed who made it very clear that those of us who do not support the “Progressive Agenda” are exactly that…stupid haters.
Tell me if this makes sense: I trade my labor for something of value (my wages). Someone who takes my wages without compensating me for them by extension takes my labor without compensating me. Isn’t that nothing less than slavery? Being forced to work for the benefit of another?
That’s why we don’t like the dogfood.
I’ve got an idea. Have one of those ‘President Addresses the Nation’ televised chats. Then have Obama whip out the Flash Cards.
Perhaps if the ruling class had taken time to actually READ the HCR before passage they could do a better job of explaining it and making sure we rubes understand it now.
I guess it takes nuanced liberal genius to know government is the best job creator, NASA is for muslim outreach and healthcare is best when designed for wealth redistribution.
The propagandizing Progressives assert, in this case that because the HCR bill that they have not read does not contain the phrase “death panels”, that any claim to the effective existence of death panels therein is false.
They attempt to chastise us with the claim that “independent panels of experts will determine cost effectiveness” are obviously not “death panels”.
Wrong on both counts: “independent” (they will be hand-picked, and paid well, doing what they are told), and “cost effectiveness” (which means determining who is and who is not worth treating and saving; that means death panels in all but name).
We in medicine all know this.
When discussing this with several sets of “liberal” minds, after their initial bid to sell dog food as gold and the discussion comes to the point where both of us know none of us will be fooled, I am told things like… it takes an egg to make an omelette so some eggs must be broken, or the medical costs (or even the population to the more boldly honest progressives) are unsustainable so to fix it costs must go up and medical care must become scarce. Lots of cliches and an absolutely morally bankrupt underpinning of the support is exposed. Many of them do know someone lied, people will die, and that is just the way they want it.
I have met some who believe they will profit from the changes. One couple, worth a half a million or so if they have a middle class income, who cannot obtain medical insurance due to minor cancers and age and who drifted between medical insurances thinking they would always be able to go back to the state one (academic based). That failed hard. They really think they will get something for nothing, save their income in case of major medical, and that others can easily pay. I have tried to explain that, with waiting lines and their age and the limits on care and doctors, they will pay more in the end, or all of it themselves if private medical is available and time is critical. Their age and condition puts them at the back of that medical bus. They are scared, so afraid to lose their money that they will sell their lives, as I see it.
Dog food indeed.
Note to “Barry:” you need to get out to every tossup district and deliver/read a long-winded speech about healthcare to help out your fellow
RedsDemocrats. Hug it out with the endangered Dem candidate after condescendingly explaining the brilliance of HCR to all of us morons, who clearly don’t deserve you.Also, don’t throw us in that briar patch.
What should be done by the groups trying to repeal the law is to go thru the entire 2,000+ pages and pull out the sh*t buried in there.
The odd requirements for hiring quotas and/or favoritism – anything that can be used to characterize the thing as a chaotic mess of political ‘earmarks’ for the left. Find them and systematically release them in TV ads and press releases – a steady pounding to counteract Cohn’s idea.
The difference is that he would promote and repeat a lot of ‘benefits’ that will never materialize – not in this reality – whereas the steady barrage I’m advocating would be of real facts about the law – no exaggeration or distortion.
The way I see it, they made a serious mistake in the order of things they wish to do. They forgot to get all the guns.
This whole HCR will come tumbling down the first time a Crips’ Momma will be told her treatment will be too expensive. Or a redneck’s daughter. Or a Cholo’s sister.
All these idiot academics who think they will control the lives of the populace. Meanwhile, they worry about the TEA Parties? The TEA Parties should really be the least of their worries.
Here’s our plan: we will point out all the magical thinking and inconsistencies in a calm, measured tone of voice, and then politely ask for repeal. No pressure.
http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2010/10/01/red-lining-the-eco-insanity-meter/
Boom!
Yes. This video very, very much needs to replace Downfall Hitler in all its many variations.
“No pressure” is a massive own goal for the progressives. Therefore, it will be consigned to the Memory Hole as fast as possible. It will be as if it never occurred. In response, we should keep it alive by saying “No Pressure” at every opportunity. If it becomes a catch phrase, memory will stay alive and that will hurt the Left.
kaba hit the sore spot with the American people and this so-called health care refore, a/k/a ObamaCare. Our bloody lawmakers couldn’t be bothered to read that for which they voted. All one needs to do is replay Rep. Conyers’ (@sshole-MI) opinion about read the bill (who can read a two thousand page page bill in two days with two lawyers and understand it?). Most Americans know the old Latin phrase, caveat emptor. If a regular Joe signs a contract that they did not read, they know they’re on the hook for their own stupidity. Now the American people realize they are on the hook for the stupidity of Congress and the White House. That does not sit well, especially with all the condescending talk about how stupid and/or misinformed opponents of ObamaCare are. Congress being exempt, unions being exempt, Louisiana being bought, Nebraska being bought, are all symptoms screaming if this bill is so darned good,why all the shenanigans and bribery? ObamaCare does not pass the smell test.
Progressives always overestimate their own intelligence (like calling Obama a 3-d chess playing genius) while denigrating the common sense of the average American.
November 2 will tell the tale.
“You can keep your health care if you like it.” My mother’s Medicare Advantage Plan was just canceled as of 1/1/2011 by the insurance company. Lots of doctors weren’t taking Medicare before this mess. Just wait, there’s going to be a lot more who won’t, especially once the cuts start kicking in, all to fund the young and the uninsured.
This bunch just doesn’t learn from history. Every single entitlement program has grown to be much larger, at least 10x, than the initial projections. There’s also no example in the twentieth century of central planning causing anything but shortages and black markets. I predict that when the dust has finally settled, Obamacare alone will be enough to destroy the Democratic party for a generation.
But it doesn’t say “Death Panel: Meets alternate Wednesdays” on the door, so it can’t really be one. We’ll call it something else, with “cost containment,” or “eligibility determination” in the title, so it will be okay. Then no one will actually die from our decisions, just be part of a higher mortality rate for those not qualifying.
Simple.
You have to grasp, it’s not that most of these people are being dishonest so much as evasive, refusing to think through uncomfortable bits. They really think this way. Which I suppose is intellectually dishonest in and of itself, however.
@ Deeka October 2nd, 2010 at 4:11 pm: Isn’t that nothing less than slavery? Being forced to work for the benefit of another?
Yes. As I have put it:
Forced Altruism Is Slavery.
Somebody else put it very close to the way you have stated it here, back in the day:
“Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn it whatever way you will — whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro….”
(Abraham Lincoln, “Speech at Chicago, Illinois, July 10, 1858; Collected Works, Volume 2, page 500.)
Lincoln habitually referred to Senator Stephen Douglas as Judge Douglas. This speech was given in reply to a speech by Douglas the day before, but this exchange was a few weeks before their great series of famous debates.
Somewhat OT, but another example of where talking some more is unlikely to do much good, I watched Christiane Amanpour this morning in a town hall meeting discussion of Islamophobia in America. The transcript is amazing. We should put it into a time capsule to aid future archaeologists piece together what happened in the first half of the 21st Century.
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-holy-war-americans-fear-islam/comments?type=story&id=11786745
Oblio:
For those like Amanpour who decry “Islamaphobia,” my suggestion is that they move to either the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Iran, or perhaps the Parisian suburbs, and then report back to us.
A salesman of my acquaintance was fond of the phrase “In sales as in medicine, prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.” This points up a major aspect of the dysfunctionality of the Obama administration: they have a pocketful of prescriptions, mostly dating from their college days, which they walk around handing out without any serious inquiry into the patient’s illness. This attitude has dominated all their policy-making, but is particularly notable in healthcare.
This has brought them to their current situation, in which they have to persuade the customer that the contract he signed in the dead of night, after hours of pressure and many drinks, was really a good deal after all.
^ Excellent metaphors, those.
I was reading an MSM article about a survey that used similar terms. You know, the democrat version of the story is ‘the truth’ and ‘the facts’ and the public is wrong….
Of course, the people who did the study and the msm were the people who were wrong.
We will have death panels; they’re just not on a case by case basis yet but they are there now (called ‘efficiency panels’….). In the old system, there were state insurance regulators that could hear your case against your insurance company’s decisions about your healthcare. It was nice because it was adversarial. I’m not sure how that will be handled now, so we might get individual death panels too (they had them in the UK for organ transplants… you had to grovel and argue your case about how you had something to offer ‘society’)…
We have higher expenses, policy prices are already going up and even if the msm wants to split hairs… even the government says that should now be considered a tax.
et cetera….
Anyway, we have to learn from history. One way to fight this is what was done in the UK.
Have doctors ignore the bill and refuse to cooperate with the government.
Sell private insurance out of Canada and Mexico that the doctors above will be willing to accept.
In the UK, doctors employed by the NHS just stopped showing up for work… and started practicing medicine privately again. The state didn’t have the guts to charge or arrest them (because ‘legally’ all physicians were to be state employees).
So anyway, civil disobedience.
http://www.ktvn.com/Global/story.asp?S=13259878
My wife is recovering from having a cancerous kidney removed on 8/31/10. The obstacle course she (and I) had to run to get her into the operating room, was, IMNSHO, a harbinger of things to come.
The diagnoasis was cancer and the only feasible treatment was surgery. But wait a minute – my wife is 76. She’s had a long life and the surgery will be expensive, so, we need to evaluate whether she has a chance of living five years after the surgery. She was subjected to an extremely rigorous physcical examination that lasted two days. Total blood workup; complete cardiology workup with EKG and echo-cardiogram; much probing and prodding, testing for diabetes, physical dexterity and mental evaluation, etc. It became clear they were probably not going to perform the surgery if they could find any reason not to do it. Fortunately, except for the tumor on her kidney, my wife is quite healthy. Her physical age is less than her chronological. (The doctor who directed the physical shared that with me.) The operation was scheduled and she is now five weeks into recovery and doing well. The post op pathology showed a tumor that was still small, but also a cyst that could have burst and caused internal bleeding. The prognosis is good – she will undoubtedly outlive me.
Maybe I am being too paranoid, but I have never seen anyone subjected to a pre-surgery physical like that in an attempt to see if the patient would die of something else or could not withstand the surgery. Will those of us over a “certain age” now have to qualify for expensive procedures? Obamacare is not implemented yet, but it appears the medical establishment is prepping for pathways to denial of treatment for the old and infirm.
J.J: best wishes to your wife for a speedy recovery.
They certainly worked my mother up before her hip surgery to see if she was likely to survive it. But in my mother’s case (because she is so old; she 96), I saw that as reasonable, since they want to protect themselves and the patient from a catastrophic occurrence in surgery, if they possibly can. It’s certainly standard to work someone up to make sure they have no heart problems, etc., before surgery, even for people in their 40s. I don’t think that’s anything new. Perhaps, however, the extent of your wife’s pre-surgical workup is what’s new?
neo,
Thanks.
I guess I’m just getting paranoid about it all. A nightmare like Obamacare will do that to you.
I blanked out when I saw “TNR” so I googled it.
It also means “Trap-Neuter-Return”
Appropriate!
Ahn TNR. The very last people on the planet who really, really cared about whether you were a Trotskyite or a Stalinist.
John Cohn finds a “moral argument” for soaking the rich. Maybe he can start by getting Katrina Vander Heuvel to pay her estate taxes like the rest of us little people. TNR and Cohn are an educated laughing stock, and only fringe loonies give even a second of credence to their thoughts on economic policy. I’d love to run into Cohn on street; he wouldn’t know what hit him…..