Losing The Health Care Argument

One suspects that President Obama's handling of the Health Care issue is not indicative of his lovemaking ability. If it were, he would be facing a divorce hectored by Rush Limbaugh on top of the daunting issues already sitting on his desk.

President Obama built his brand with an outreach to the political center. He has done a poor job of that lately. We have detailed the President's passed ball on green energy. That one went all the way to the backstop in a different stadium. Mr. Obama's agenda is getting savaged by a milquetoast presentation and what appears to be a fundamental lack of desire to reconnect with the people most responsible for his election.

For all of this criticism, one recognizes that the administration has done an admirable job of expressing itself responsibly and treating the debate (a bit too) thoughtfully. Regrettably, the Republican opposition has been very successful demagoguing the Rove-Atwater ankle-biting, testicle-punching, sand-throwing propaganda tactics. The President is not going to realize a reversal of current trends until he becomes angry, yanks his opposition up by the hair, and slams them into a turnbuckle at full force.

As stated in the discussion about Cap and Trade, empowering the liberal wing of the Democratic party with the details of presentation has proved to be a poor use of Obama's political capital. Obama's jury is in the center, and the entire presentation has been committed to people who drive Swedish cars and listen to NPR on their way to Whole Foods. That can be defined as converting the converted. Less fortunate for the administration are the Camrys and Accords catching right-wing screeds on the way to Kroger.

The President's first objective must be to narrow the term "socialist." For nearly anyone with a dictionary in the house, it would not be hard. The Clear Channel-Fox News axis is particularly fond of the term. In an instant, Roger Ailes' propaganda machine is able to hitch an idea coming from the Obama White House to unattractive little cars tooling between grimy concrete apartment blocks.

The pitfall for the right is that of any panacea which becomes abused. The effectiveness dwindles to nothing. A speech that puts some pavement between Health Care Reform which includes PRIVATE providers and Socialism is necessary. Should Mr. Obama defang the opposition's number-one favorite go-to word, there exists no equivalent, effective backup. Conservatives are only left with asinine portmanteaux.

President Obama is more than capable of delivering an optimistic message which takes the mischaracterization of socialism off the table for good. What can be achieved simultaneously is the contextualization of the current federal participation in health care. At the moment the United States and Canada spend the same amount per capita on the governmental level for health care. The Canadians have a functional, relatively transparent system of universal medicine, which approximately 90% of Canadians describe as good or excellent. (See enclosed link from CTV News in Toronto.)

We in the United States, on the other hand, are paying a sirloin price for stale chicken hot dogs.

The public-private duality of the Obama plan must be clarified on the President's terms. A private option, and the ability to move between public and private plans serves as a check on the growth of government. It also serves as a release for pressures to undo a public system by political means. A key motivator of many who preferred President Obama to Secretary of State Clinton in the primaries was his endorsement of a Universal solution which included Private insurers.

A single-payer public health care system in a diverse population of 300 million is unworkable due to its political vulnerabilities. The quasi-private system that exists is unworkable because it fails to cover one in six people, and thusly leaves the nation in a system of de facto rationing. This disproportionately affects less affluent and minority Americans by denying access to medicine, particularly those with chronic conditions which are factors of poverty.

The administration's preferred health care system requires a comparison of total cost to society as compared to the status quo. The best idea would be to have the estimates drawn by several partisan think tanks so as to provide a range of values which would not be impeachable by partisanship. Every group would be instructed to use the same criteria and methodology.

Similarly, the status quo offers the opportunity for some well-justified populism. While incessant populism quickly becomes tiresome, a short burst against a worthy opponent gives Obama's credibility a shot of painfully absent vitality. He could have given the What? Now they can't compete? discussion a bit more time, and saved himself the drama he finds himself in now. A seasoning of mild populism leverages appeals to small businesses and working class families.

Once equipped with independent, empirical data, the case in the president's favor hews closely to his usual style of cool reason. When armed with the tools of logic, President Obama is nonpareil in his ability to offer a clear, informed engagement as to how the average person will benefit from Health Care Reform. Taking the mantle from congressional master debaters and vitiriolic radio polemecists plays to Obama's greatest strength, analytical rhetoric that focuses upon the justification for a plan without the caprice of gratuitous emotion.

President Obama is well aware of Stephen Colbert's lesson: Reality has a well-known liberal bias.