We should have learned by now the value of framing - of consistently using favorable terms as a way to bend the arguments. For years, the Republicans’ message discipline has been reinforced by strong frames. If we had used constant repetition of phrases like "Iraq Invasion" and then "Iraq occupation", we might be in a different place now. But, no, we have to continue to call it the "Iraq war", and it's imperative that wars have to be won. So we are never able to deepen the debate.
The same can be said of our continuing to frame universal healthcare as an insurance policy. More over the flip.
So too in the movement to establish universal health care access. When I came to the US from England, some of the terms associated with medicine sounded completely jarring to my ears: "insurance", "coverage", "premium", "claim", and "deductible" (also "doctor's office", but that is because we still used the quaint term "surgery" even for the family doctor's, umm, office). Let's even drop "coverage". The concept of a national health service as an insurance operation was, simply and literally, foreign.
If we want to establish a society where there is consensus that basic health care is universally accessible, regardless of the ability to pay, let's stop talking about it as an insurance-like commodity (Paul Krugman, I'm addressing you here). Let's stop fooling ourselves that we are insuring against what is, let's face it, the inevitability of sickness. Here I may leave behind those who believe that it's important that patients still have some concept of the cost of treatment, but I'd like us to start writing and talking on terms of access, guarantee, common good, and, if you are of that persuasion, rights.
See, I'm uncomfortable coming up with a vocabulary because I'm painfully aware that there is a variety of conceptions and preconceptions on the left of how we should organize a compassionate, moral healthcare funding system. Some of them will, indeed, want to continue to organize it as insurance. But I suggest we stop that and start organizing around a common rhetoric that moves us away from the shadow of insurance companies and all of their devouring mechanics.