The Obama Administration in its effort to "not be the Clintons" so far has been abysmally ineffective in selling those not already on board on health insurance reform. Barack started to actually use those words, "health insurance reform" in his press conference the other day. Those should have been the only words out of his mouth since day one. Americans not self-identifying as liberals do not on the whole give a good rat's ass about the unemployed woman or man down the street. The empathy gap in America is huge. What should always have been the selling point was how much Health Insurance Reform was going to save the average family, with the side benefit of near universal coverage for all.
The Clintons in many ways tried the same approach 16 years ago focusing almost exclusively on the uninsured, how many there were, and how fast that subset was growing.
Think of the difference the opinion polls would currently reflect had the focus been on cost control from the beginning and that 47 million Americans weren't just uninsured but weren't paying premiums.
Think where the discussion might be right now if the focus had not been on "$1 trillion health care reform and how do we pay for it when we are all dead broke" but instead $670 billion in health care savings through health insurance reform, along with tens of billions more in American families' pockets through reduced premiums via a robust and competitive public option.
Instead were a faced with corporate media repeating the usual Republican talking points of socialized medicine, government takeover of health care, bureaucrats in Washington getting between you and your doctor, higher taxes, and euthanasia.
Whose fault is this? The Republicans? Come on. Was it Disraeli who said: "The purpose of the opposition is to oppose!" They become the Whig Party if effective health insurance reform passes. The should and will do anything and everything to kill this reform. The party of assholes will always be the party of assholes.
No, the blame goes to Democrats like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. They get so used to their own echo chambers and the "please help out the poor uninsured" mantra that they forget the old line about preaching to the choir. You don't have to convince liberals that we need massive health insurance reform. Most of us want single payer anyway. We're long past converted. (That's the 41% in the latest Gallup poll that says "do it now!") It's the 31% who say "do it sometime soon but get it right" that you need to be talking to and they need reassurance about costs not coverage. Go out and convert those pagans who are scared to death of any change. Talk about costs savings ad nauseam. Talk about how it will result in more money in their pockets, not less. Stop with the Mother Teresa meme already.
Talk about how doing nothing costs trillions more than doing something. Health Insurance Reform saves trillions, not costs trillions. Repeat it over and over again until it firmly cements in the doubter's minds.
The ads out there with the "It's time" meme are nothing less pathetic and are designed apparently to reconvince people like me. I don't need convincing. My disaffected moderate Republican neighbors do and they think it's a trillion dollar boondoggle to cover 47 million deadbeats.
Wake the fuck up Democrats and leave the echo chamber. Preach to the unconverted and sell it like we sell everything else in this country. Do not appeal to people's better angels. The unconvinced are way too poor and pissed off to support any handouts. Show them how it saves them money and then and only then will they buy it.
This entire argument could be repeated for any number of important issues such strong cap and trade legislation. Don't sell it as "saving the planet" and "preventing climate change". Sell it as saving ourselves lots of money. It will keep hundreds of billions of dollars from going overseas usually to very bad people who want us dead. Clean air and and a slowing of climate change are and should be sold as side benefits, not the main reason. It will save money and keep more jobs here and it will keep America safer from Al Qaeda. That's the only thing the unconvinced want to hear.
The single thing we can thank those jerkfaced Blue Dogs for is if the conversation now turns back to costs savings for the next two months and how much we save through reform.