Five Vital Points the President Must Make in His Upcoming Speech On Health Care Reform
President Obama is back in Washington and the healthcare debate is still raging. Yesterday, the President seemed to jettison the public plan and the White House announced that in the next two weeks, he will make a major policy address on healthcare. Here are five vital points that the President must make in his speech and Democrats must adopt if we're going to pass meaningful healthcare reform this year.
1. The President Must State That a Mandate For Universal Coverage is Non-Negotiable
More than anything else that has been proposed, creating a mandate for every American to have some form of healthcare coverage is the key to a fairer, more efficient healthcare system. Having a mandate is also vital to keeping the insurance industry at the negotiating table and giving the President the leverage to make other large-scale changes to the health insurance market. The President must acknowledge that he has learned from Hillary Clinton's campaign the necessity of an insurance mandate and that in no way, shape or form will he sign legislation that does not guarantee every American healthcare coverage.
2. The President Must Take Ownership of a Plan
No more dueling Senate and House bills. The President must outline his plan and his vision for healthcare reform in explicit detail. He needs to be the leader on healthcare reform. One main reason the Democrats lost the healthcare debate in August was because there wasn't a single policy to defend. Every idea that was ever proposed by a Democrat, ranging from single-payer plans, to insurance co-operatives, to the public plan got lumped together and attacked. Without a clear, well-defined policy in place, Americans got scared of the vagueness. There was nothing explicit to defend other than reform itself, and Democrats were left running to plug holes in a leaky dam.
3. The President Must Remind Americans Why Healthcare Reform is Important
With all the talk of whether or not to include a public plan, death panels and socialized medicine, Americans lost sight of why healthcare reform was vital in the first place. President Obama needs to paint a vivid, emotive picture of the need for healthcare reform.
Republicans seized on the most emotional aspects of healthcare reform, like rationing and end of life care, and a single Facebook post from Sarah Palin in many ways defined the August debate. Instead of fighting fire with fire, Democrats tried to fight fire with statistics. And they lost. Democrats need to stop slinging statistics and start pumping up the emotion. President Obama and Democrats must be explicit and say that it's not ok and it's not the American way to leave citizens to die without health insurance coverage. The President needs to say that opposing reform means opposing small businesses and the self-employed, since right now, they're the ones paying the highest insurance premiums. The President needs to say that ignoring healthcare means placing an anchor on American-made products that we're trying to sell overseas.
4. The President Must Call Out His Detractors
Republicans who are opposed to improving healthcare and providing health insurance to those without it are thwarting reform without offering alternatives. By attacking Democrats' efforts at reform without offering solutions of their own, they have highlighted that they think things are fine just the way they are. It's time to call them out on it. The President must say that he likes a healthy debate and knows that on an issue as complex as healthcare, there are going to be ideological differences. Nevertheless, he must make it crystal clear that ideological entrenchment and attacking healthcare for political gain is tantamount to inactivity and cowardice. If Republicans want to block the President's plans for healthcare reform, Democrats must demand in every interview, town hall and speech that their opponents offer a plan to fix what's wrong with healthcare that offers more than tort reform and vague references to cost-cutting.
5. Healthcare is More Important than Re-election
Healthcare reform is imperative. Sixty-three percent of personal bankruptcies are fueled by high medical bills, 18,000 Americans die each year because they don't have insurance coverage and ignoring healthcare will cripple American businesses. More than all that, ignoring the shortcomings of the US healthcare system and turning a blind eye to those lacking sufficient coverage is just plain wrong. The President must go out on a limb and state that for him, healthcare reform is more important than re-election. He must state that issues like healthcare reform are precisely why he ran for President and he will not ignore them for political expediency. A pledge of support and display of courage will do more than anything else to illustrate why healthcare reform is imperative, and create momentum to pass meaningful legislation. Of course, the President could try for healthcare reform and fail, but that is a risk that every great leader needs to be willing to take.
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Well I've been trying to post part 2 of my comment for over an hour now. Part 2 appears on my profile under the comments tab twice but doesn't appear underneath this article where it belongs. So I guess if you're really interested in reading the entire comment you'll have to click on my profile and then click on the "My Comments" tab to read it or respond. This is due to the stupid moderation system this site uses where your posts are limited to a few hundred words and may take hours to actually post on the site.
Thanks HP
Excellent, I hope the President reads your post
Part1
The president needs to start practicing marketing 101. First get rid of all the so called "experts" that couldn't sell a heater to an Eskimo and hire some salespeople to take their place. My method of teaching inexperienced salespeople how to get past objections to buying whatever I'm selling can easily be applied to any product including Universal health care. It goes like this:
Feature
Benefit
Advantage
Close
Using this outline for everything you talk about to a potential buyer, in this case a consumer (voter) who is not sold on Universal health care, you can respond to ANY objection in mid conversation without the need to have complete and total knowledge of the product you're selling. (Best left to engineers, scientists, inventors, etc.)
Secondly, using this system, you gain CONTROL of the conversation in an easy, relaxing, and unthreatening manner that allows you to RELABEL the objections you’re experiencing to more consumer friendly titles and eliminate FEAR labels like “Death Panels,” with friendly labels like “Life Counseling
Using this technique and applying it to the health care debate (fear) will go a long way to explaining the WHY of health care reform.
So using the points in Coopers article the outline of your argument (sales pitch) would go something like this:
Objection for point #1 in the article: No Mandates for the Uninsured
Feature: (Universal Coverage) If we implement “Nation Wide Coverage” (Relabeled from “Universal Healthcare” or “Public Plan”) that covers all of our citizens,
You cite the rate of health related bankruptcies, yet a 'NO 4-YEAR (2013) DELAY' somehow missed being one of your 'five vitals'.
Just how does another MILLION health-care related bankruptcies over 4 years help OUR country, OUR economy, the uninsured or ANYTHING ...other than the industry profit margins? THIS blatant giveaway by CONgress sells out the very lives and well being of OUR citizens for many years, stripping great numbers of them every bit of their respect, dignity and money.
It's NOT even SANE and deserves veto!
Better yet, Medicare or CONgress' Health Care Plan available through EVERY employer 'immediately', but ONLY IF YOU WANT IT, or you can keep your current insurance plan. End of story.
the constitutionality of the mandate will be challenged in court.
if the democrats don't wish to swept out of office in 2010 just like '94 he better say, the American people have spoken and they said no, so on to other things.
only the lunics have said no the rest are saying do something.
Point #5 hits the nail on the head...Pre
This is an excellent memorandum. I sure hope he reads it!
If Obama does not support a public option on Wednesday's speech, then do not donate any money to Obama's Organizing for America's group, donate money to other groups that will support for a public option.
Abandonment of the public option is unacceptable. It still leaves too many people uninsured, and leaves the whole enterprise without leverage. A mandate without a public option just drives us all into the open arms of the criminal big insurance companies.
"1. The President Must State That a Mandate For Universal Coverage is Non-Negotiable"
No bill has universal coverage and the President has never called for Universal Coverage so what is to negotiate? The reality, which a British person would not be attuned to, are that the bills are intended to capture more clients for private Ins. Cos. by using state powers.
"2. The President Must Take Ownership of a Plan"
Ask yourself why he hasn't already? Yet he will lecture about doctors' decision making. The reason is that if he takes ownership of a plan he has to "show his cards" on the public option. If no public option, loses faith with voters. If has one, no ins. co. money for his next campaign. He will not take ownership, but give some guidelines about his feelings a little more than before.
"5. Healthcare is More Important than Re-election"
He is a Chicago politician. It's not.
"has never called for Universal Coverage "
Correction, he may have done so in the campaign, he has not recently.
I think this article nailed it - 5 for 5!
Universal coverage is not the most important thing. If coverage is mandated but costs are not controlled, all rates will go up as they have in Mass. and everyone involved will pay a price. I can't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions so I'm not throwing others under the bus from my own position of security. I'm saying for myself that being forced to pay more money to the insurance companies, rewarding them for creating this mess and turning them into an even bigger and more powerful monster will absolutely be worse than leaving things as they are. At least now I can try to save some money for emergency health care and make my house pmt so I have some assets in case of emergency. Forcing me to choose health ins over my house pmt and then have them not pay if I get sick and continue to raise prices? Not acceptable. IF they could regulate the ins co's so there were price controls, etc., maybe we could go without a public option, but that isn't even on the table and won't be as long as the lobby is as strong as it is. It will be even less likely once they have even more money to lobby with. I am afraid we are heading for a true disaster between Wall Street and the health industry and the way Obama seems set on dealing with both.
"I am afraid we are heading for a true disaster between Wall Street and the health industry and the way Obama seems set on dealing with both."
Nothing was done about Wall Street. Nothing will be done, and the president signaled that in his Wall Street speech where he urged "innovation"--even more exotic paper practices.
The health industry controls this bill. Do you hear any of them complaining? This bill is for them in all respects. The administration used the ruse of the bill to confirm Bush policies on non-negotiation on drug prices too.
That is how the President is "dealing with both."
Fear? Mandate is a word that translates into dictate. No president or government guided interference should ever be allowed to mandate. Ownership means dictate. You dictate where and when your car will be used. Too you dictate when it's time to get rid of the old. Ownership? Reform is needed to pay off what corporate America promised and now reneged on. GM retirees, California State employees, wal-mart no benifits policy. The reason for reform is so corporate America can bail on their responsibilities and so that government can begin to be the national insurer attaching required laws to operations. We need to reform corporate America. Detractors are the base of democracy, and will save your butt, 80% of the time. Healthcare more important than re election to president but not to life long congressmen. Congress reps hold their wealthy powerful positions till they die. Healthcare is a law that will take YEARS to write, with the dots dotted and the T's crossed, not some fly by night sooth your dilemma piece of paper.
He could also tell us how it's going to be paid for.
He could explain what "end of Life" counseling means.
He could explain his deal with "Big Pharma."
I'll take a breath and list some more. . . .
"Sixty-three percent of personal bankruptcies are fueled by high medical bills"
Dear Sir you either did not read the study or purposely misrepresent it. 63% refer not to the people who went bankrupt because of the high medical bills but to people who went bankrupt while having medical issues. It includes people who went bankrupt because they could not work due to the being sick. It includes people who had $100,000 in credit card debt BEFORE geting sick. The percentage of the bankruptcies to the high medical bills is in mid twenties..
And your sources for this "corrected" percentage is what? Rush? Hannity? Beck?
It's funny how in your bizzarro Rushpublican world nothing is ever as bad as claimed, everything is just peachy-keen. Facts, statistics and reality be damned, you've got yours and the heck with the other guy. In your little rose-colored neo-con world, Hurricane Katrina was just a small sprinkling of rain, torture is just a light tickling and Iraq is just a trifling little dust-up with only a few bloody noses and nobody in the U.S. ever gets sick. Must be nice to live in such a world so disconnected from reality. Enjoy your stay while you can.
Unlike you (and most of the liberals) I have read the actual stude. It helps to from your own view instead of getting talking point from others. You should try it...
http://dow
And a quarter is an acceptable figure?
i did not say that...
Proud....w
Halsey,
First of all, I hope you get better. Cancer have been part of my family for some time... Unfortunat
Couple of questions:
1) Did you have insurance? If not, why not?
2) From your post it feels that at no time were you prevented from getting care because of your ability to pay. Is that correct?
3) I understand that you hate having a record, but how do you feel about forcing others to pay for your care via tax?
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