How I would sell health care reform if I were president

First of all, my legislation would be simple, with no extraneous provisions beyond eligibility, funding, and benefits, more like the 13-page HR676 than like the 1000-page HR3200. I would not release the text of the bill until it was ready.

Second, I would boil my proposal down to no more than five talking points. An important provision would be that all legal residents of the U.S., including members of Congress, would be on the plan. (In most countries, non-legal residents, whether immigrants or tourists, get true emergency care only and have to pay full price for the rest.)

Third, I would go on national television to present my five talking points, preferably with illustrations and personal examples, so that viewers could tell exactly how the plan would affect them. (This is a weakness of the Obama plan. It keeps changing, and I have a hard time figuring out how I would fare.) I would conclude by urging viewers to call or write their Congress critters and Senators in support of the plan.

Fourth, I would designate the best talkers in the Progressive Caucus as the point persons for the plan. I would send them out to all the talk shows and have them write op-ed pieces for national and local publications.

Fifth, and most important, I would send the Blue Dogs on a junket to Europe for a month to "investigate health care firsthand." This would make them unavailable when Fox News called. :evilgrin:

says it all, basically.

I would select 20 cities around the US & have med events like the one in LA. Then tell the People, "Single payer will be better than this, because it will be in your home town, at your local clinic, with doctors you choose."

The town hallers would have a hard time being heard if Obama did something like this. Not to mention, a whole bunch of them would be attending the med events.

I like your idea of sending the Blue Dogs to Europe to investigate the kind of health care they are so opposed to for us.

And the purpose of sending the Blue Dogs to Europe would be to make them unavailable for comment as much as educating them.

Back when I was living in Oregon, I attended a forum on the upcoming ballot measures for that year.

As one of the speakers described a particularly convoluted (and sneaky right-wing) initiative, he said, "Fortunately, this one won't pass, because it's too hard to understand, and experience has shown that people automatically vote no if they can't understand a measure."

In order for health care reform to succeed, Americans will need to understand how reform will affect THEM. If the politicians can't tell them in a few sentences, they're going to tune out.

That's why HR3200 has been so easy for the right-wing to demagogue. Who, of the people inclined to worship Sarah Palin, is going to read a 1000-page bill to find out that she's lying?