Fear Techniques wouldn't work nearly as well on "Medicare for all"

[nightrain]

http://openleft.com/diary/14554/fear-techniques-wouldnt-work-nearly-as-well-on-medicare-for-all

Thanks to another poster (whose post I can't find) who listed this link previously

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Fear Techniques wouldn't work nearly as well on "Medicare for all"
by: Ian Welsh
Mon Aug 10, 2009 at 19:30

Seriously, "grandma's going to be killed by Obama's healthcare plan" (whatever his plan is, even I don't know) wouldn't work on "we're just going to give medicare to everyone".
Just sayin'.

The whole "you can't sell single payer" is turning out to be, well, rather questionable. Because the way things are going it's fairly clear you can't sell some godawful hodgepodge either and all the screaming about "you're going to take away my Medicare" indicates that a lot of the people who oppose Obamacare, love Medicare.

When you're trying to explain something, you do so by metaphor in almost all cases. Everyone knows what Medicare is. The majority of people with Medicare are happy with it and even people without Medicare know people (usually their parents or grandparents) who have it, and whom it's working for.

Ruling out "single payer" from the very start was an act of mind-bending incompetence on the level of disbanding Iraq's army during the occupation of Iraq. From a policy point of view "Medicare for all" provides massive savings, and we know it works because the equivalent policies have worked for every other nation in the world who ever implemented then. From a sales point of view it's much harder to demonize Medicare and much easier to explain it. From a negotiation point of view pre-compromising is so stupid that anyone who has spent 5 minutes in a third world bazaar or taken even a single negotiating class knows better.

The current health reform "bills" are turning into a clusterfuck of epic proportions. Scrap them, introduce Medicare for all, target Senators who won't vote for it with bone-crushing ads which ask why they want 22,000 American to die every year who could be saved for less money than the Iraq war cost; explain with nice simple pictures how much money they receive from the insurance industry and note that they are willing to let Americans die in exchange for blood money from the medical industry.

I know it's difficult for Democrats to play hardball since they'd have to grow a spine, but perhaps, just perhaps, it's worth it to save lives, end 70% of all bankruptcies and make sure people who are sick get the care they need?

(Oh, and to save Obama's presidency. )

[Barack_America]

1. Really? Seems to bolster the "rationing" argument to me...

Scaring the senior citizens that their care is going to have to be split to cover more people.

I can just see the ads now, "The Medicare system is already going bankrupt. How can they offer Medicare to everybody without decreasing your care?"

I'm not saying it's not a good idea, I actually favor it. But it is as vulnerable to lies and distortion as all the other plans, imo.

[nightrain]

3. take that 20% that goes to private insur execs, and perhaps a bit more

in payroll tax, and we're probably there, and maybe more.

[John Q. Citizen]

6. No. The asd would say, Medicare works great for seniors, and now it's going to work for everyone.

By Strengthening and Expanding Medicare, we can make sure it's even better than it is today and that it will be there for all of us forever!

We know that Americans love and respect their mothers and fathers and their grandmothers and Grandfathers. And We know that if it's
good enough for them that it's good enough for us!

Medicare! For Health!

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Medicare For All is introduced and it's being scored by the CBO. And yes, it's an easy sell.

[nightrain]

4. yes! FINALLY!

[DCKit]

5. Medicare for all, or Medicare for none.

Sales of Depends will skyrocket.

[JDPriestly]

7. Proud to recommend this post. Excellent.

We are so distracted by this health care issue. And the fault is on those trying to include and placate the insurance companies. Health insurance companies serve no purpose whatsoever. They just take a cut from our health care dollars and complicate the process of providing and getting health care. They are parasites and they are killing our health care system.

Some years ago, the health insurance companies could have argued that they served the legitimate function of providing needed capital for the purchase of equipment, etc. But, since the Wall Street crash, Americans have learned that, ultimately, the lowly middle class taxpayer is the insurer of last resort of big business in the U.S.

The health insurance companies may pretend to be a part of our so-called "free enterprise," "free market" system. But that system, if the truth is known, is bankrupt to the core. It issues worthless paper, takes profits on it and then sells that worthless trash to us, the taxpayers.

So, the big mistake of Congress in this effort at health care reform is to pretend that we still live in a free enterprise system and that the health insurance companies play some valuable role in that system.

I'm not advocating for socialism. I am not a socialist. But, I am just looking at where we are after nearly 30 years of Reaganomics, and seeing that our economic relationships are about very far from the capitalism of Jefferson, who believed in a nation of self-sufficient farmers and tradesmen in which education would be free for all and provided by local governments and townships and every person would be able to survive offering to the marketplace what he did best.

Contrary to the right wing propaganda, the failure of capitalism is not due to government regulation or intervention. Had that been true, it would have failed during the New Deal and it did not. After all, free enterprise and the willingness and capacity of our private industry to respond to the needs of our military during WWII proved how efficient, strong and independent our free economy was at that time.

Rather, the failure of our capitalist experiment is due to corruption within capitalism itself. Pride and the desire to APPEAR to be winning the competition for wealth caused our business leaders to become blindly greedy. And greed in turn motivated those leaders in the business community to turn to fraud and gambling in many, many forms just to create the illusion of material success.

Meanwhile the slaves of a repressive Communist regime (and it still is that although it has donned a capitalist mask and costume) produce the consumer goods that delude taxpayers into thinking they are still solvent.

Until we recognize that we no longer live in a free enterprise economy, but rather in some sort of other economic organization that as yet has not been named, we will see a lot of discontent and a lot of acting out. The current situation is confusing. People are floating about without any economic bearings. I have no solutions. I just see this reality.

[nightrain]

8. I think we (the US)are at a crossroads of sorts. Unable to let go of this predator/prey relationship

with the health insurance corporations, and having difficulty acknowledging that something new is needed, but afraid to take that risk. Letting go comes with some fear and loss before the excitement of investing in the new (mode of financing and delivering healthcare).

The health insurance model clearly is dead and we needn't throw more money (or effort) their way.