Say what you will about Trump, he is a master at branding. Little Marco, Low Energy Jeb, Crooked Hillary. One big early fight ahead is to save Medicare when Paul Ryan tries to bundle privatizing it with an Obamacare repeal. I am 56, and this one is personal.
I have been reading materials at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. This organization seems like a great alternative to the AARP. Tom Harkin chairs their board, and it looks like they have been in the fight and on the side of the angels since the early 1980s.
Their genius move is to brand Ryan’s plan as CouponCare. A lot catchier than just saying he want to privatize Medicare (a sort of scary idea but what exactly does it mean to someone not up on policy?). Coupons are an easy way to explain to anyone with a short attention span how horrible Ryan’s plan is.
Everyone has experience with coupons, and for most of us it isn’t great. We mumble “no” sheepishly almost every time the grocery store clerk asks if we have any coupons (feeling like we should have been more diligent before we came to the store and rousted up a few). The very existence of coupons makes me feel sort of lazy and like I’m being ripped off. Or maybe you got into clipping coupons for a few weeks in 1997 and felt all virtuous but then gave them up because it was tedious, a hassle, and you ended up buying a gross of ramen noodles or something else you didn’t need just because you had a coupon for it. Or maybe you use coupons all the time and love them but I dunno — I think you are probably in the minority there.
“Paul Ryan wants to replace Medicare with CouponCare. You get coupons and when you’re old you’ll have to sort through them and figure out what services you’ll buy with them. It isn’t clear yet how it works exactly with the coupons, but what we do know is independent analyses of the plan show it will double the average senior’s costs, adding a minimum of $6000 a year to what you’ll pay for health care when you’re old. And you’ll be responsible for sorting out the coupons and using them for a part of your health care — the coupons won’t cover most of the costs.”
CouponCare? Coupons for my health care, instead of Medicare? That’s how you’re going to strengthen and secure my health future, with a stack of coupons and some scissors? I think I’ll stick with the current plan, thanks.
It sounds like a branding winner to me.
Here’s a nice one-page flyer with reminders of why everyone already loves Medicare.