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Monday, March 29, 2010

Republicans Winning the PR Healthcare Battle

Repeal and replace

As soon as I heard that slogan, I knew the Republicans had a winner. That's because live in a soundbite world. You need to explain yourself in ten seconds or less. That fits the bill. It's short, sweet, and to the point. That's perfect on our sound bite age.

When he was running for president, candidate Obama had exactly that kind of a slogan.

Tax cuts for 95% of Americans

Again, it was short, sweet, and to the point.

Now, the Democrats are struggling to try and explain the benefits of health care reform in the world of the ten second sound bite. We hear something about how now insurance companies won't be able to deny coverage to someone with a pre existing condition, kids will be on their parents insurance until they're 26, and we'll be closer to the dream of health care for all. That's not a sound bite but a long and confusing explanation. It's even more confusing since none can explain why 2700 pages were necessary to accomplish these goals.

In fact, not everyone is all that excited about keeping kids on their parents insurance that long. It creates more dependency when much of the population wants an environment of independence. So, until Democrats can sell health care reform in the soundbite age "repeal and replace" will win out.

As an aside, I've noticed that whenever defenders defend this bill they say, "there are parts of this bill Americans like". That's an interesting admission. None will say people like the bill itself but simply parts.

1 comment:

AG said...

"Stop Breathing"

Its short its sweet its to the point, and it takes more than 5 words to explain why humans need to breath to survive.

If Americans are truly THAT incapable of having the attention span necessary to understand this, we have much bigger problems then understanding their health care benefits.

In any case, I for one have absolutely zero trust whatsoever that the Republicans would follow up on the "Replace" half of that slogan. They claimed to have an alternative to the Democrats in 1994 and then sat on it for over a decade. Then Obama comes a long and adopts a package that many Republicans promoted in 94 and now they can't support it anymore because "Obama is a socialist."

How do we know that's not going to happen again, that the Republicans aren't going to forget it again because their base won't allow it because Obama tried it once so it must be evil?