Republicans Seek Failure of Healthcare Reform

Frank Luntz, author of Words that Work Its not what you say. Its what people hear, an experienced propagandist for the Republican Party Leadership, has written the talking points for the Republican’s attack on healthcare reform.

Luntz calls it The 10 Rules for Stopping the Washington Takeover of Healthcare.

Luntz’s specialty is “testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate. [Wikipedia]

For instance, instead of calling it “oil drilling” Luntz calls it “energy exploration.” Sounds better–avoids the stigma attached to oil companies. The process of changing words in this way is called “framing.” He reframes “global warming” into “climate change” because it sounds more like nature is changing the climate on its own instead of by human beings. This oblique manner ascribes blame for the melting ice caps to nature rather than man. The idea is to shift responsibility away from polluting industries which emit CO2 into the atmosphere.

Such framing is used in the financial industry—think Banker’s Trust, or Fidelity Savings and Loan. Note the use of the words Trust and Fidelity to imply you can trust those companies and their fidelity to you.

Naive people, hearing these new ways of referring to various topics, begin to change their own language as well.

So how has Luntz  advised the Republican Leadership to talk about healthcare reform and how to oppose it? His 10 rules are:

(1) Humanize your approach. Abandon and exile ALL references to the “healthcare system.” From now on, healthcare is about people. Before you speak, think of the three components of tone that matter most: Individualize. Personalize. Humanize.

(2) Acknowledge the “crisis” or suffer the consequences. If you say there is no healthcare crisis, you give your listener permission to ignore everything else you say. It is a credibility killer for most Americans. A better approach is to define the crisis in your terms. “If you’re one of the millions who can’t afford healthcare, it is a crisis.” Better yet, “If some bureaucrat puts himself between you and your doctor, denying you exactly what you need, that’s a crisis.” And the best: “If you have to wait weeks for tests and months for treatment, that’s a healthcare crisis.”

(3) “Time” is the government healthcare killer. As Mick Jagger once sang, “Time is on Your Side.” Nothing else turns people against the government takeover of healthcare than the realistic expectation that it will result in delayed and potentially even denied treatment, procedures and/or medications. “Waiting to buy a car or even a house won’t kill you. But waiting for the healthcare you need – could. Delayed care is denied care.”

(4) The arguments against the Democrats’ healthcare plan must center around “politicians,” “bureaucrats,” and “Washington” … not the free market, tax incentives, or competition. Stop talking economic theory and start personalizing the impact of a government takeover of healthcare. They don’t want to hear that you’re opposed to government healthcare because it’s too expensive (any help from the government to lower costs will be embraced) or because it’s anti-competitive (they don’t know about or care about current limits to competition). But they are deathly afraid that a government takeover will lower their quality of care – so they are extremely receptive to the anti-Washington approach. It’s not an economic issue. It’s a bureaucratic issue.

(5) The healthcare denial horror stories from Canada & Co. do resonate, but you have to humanize them. You’ll notice we recommend the phrase “government takeover” rather than “government run” or “government controlled” It’s because too many politician say “we don’t want a government run healthcare system like Canada or Great Britain” without explaining those consequences. There is a better approach. “In countries with government run healthcare, politicians make YOUR healthcare decisions. THEY decide if you’ll get the procedure you need, or if you are disqualified because the treatment is too expensive or because you are too old. We can’t have that in America.”

(6) Healthcare quality = “getting the treatment you need, when you need it.” That is how Americans define quality, and so should you. Once again, focus on the importance of timeliness, but then add to it the specter of “denial.” Nothing will anger Americans more than the chance that they will be denied the healthcare they need for whatever reason. This is also important because it is an attribute of a government healthcare system that the Democrats CANNOT offer. So say it. “The plan put forward by the Democrats will deny people treatments they need and make them wait to get the treatments they are allowed to receive.”

(7) “One-size-does-NOT-fit-all.” The idea that a “committee of Washington bureaucrats” will establish the standard of care for all Americans and decide who gets what treatment based on how much it costs is anathema to Americans. Your approach? Call for the “protection of the personalized doctor-patient relationship.” It allows you to fight to protect and improve something good rather than only fighting to prevent something bad.

(8) WASTE, FRAUD, and ABUSE are your best targets for how to bring down costs. Make no mistake: the high cost of healthcare is still public enemy number one on this issue – and why so many Americans (including Republicans and conservatives) think the Democrats can handle healthcare better than the GOP. You can’t blame it on the lack of a private market; in case you missed it, capitalism isn’t exactly in vogue these days. But you can and should blame it on the waste, fraud, and abuse that is rampant in anything and everything the government controls.

(9) Americans will expect the government to look out for those who truly can’t afford healthcare. Here is the perfect sentence for addressing cost and the limited role for government that wins you allies rather than enemies: “A balanced, common sense approach that provides assistance to those who truly need it and keeps healthcare patient-centered rather than government-centered for everyone.”

(10) It’s not enough to just say what you’re against. You have to tell them what you’re for. It’s okay (and even necessary) for your campaign to center around why this healthcare plan is bad for America. But if you offer no vision for what’s better for America, you’ll be relegated to insignificance at best and labeled obstructionist at worst. What Americans are looking for in healthcare that your “solution” will provide is, in a word, more: “more access to more treatments and more doctors…with less interference from insurance companies and Washington politicians and special interests.”

You simply MUST be vocally and passionately on the side of reform. The status quo is no longer acceptable. If the dynamic becomes “President Obama is on the side of reform and Republicans are against it,” then the battle is lost and every word in this document is useless. Republicans must be for the right kind of reform that protects the quality of healthcare for all Americans. And you must establish your support of reform early in your presentation.

See how it works? This post could be titled The snowing of Americans. Analyze those 10 rules. The effect of those rules are a subtle seduction of the American public away from healthcare reform. They are a modern sophistication of the old day snake oil salesmen. They could be taught at Harvard Business School as “Conning America 101.”

In the days, weeks and months ahead you will hear the right wing Republican conservatives, politicians and pundits, and talking heads repeat repeat those 10 rules over and over and over. Soon you will begin to believe it. Cut out those 10 rules and tape them on your TV monitor and see.

You will be witnessing the sales pitch of big healthcare corporations to hang onto their high business profits. Close your eyes and you will see Mr. Luntz smiling, approvingly, as the Republican leadership scam you out of your healthcare, chuckling all the way to the bank.

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