GOP Budget’s Attack On Obama Health Care Plan Echoes 1993 Harry And Louise Ads

[babylonsister]

Poor, poor GOP. Not even any points for originality. :cry: Seems to me they're acting like complete buffoons.

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/president-obama/gop-budgets-attack-on-obama-health-care-plan-echoes-1993-harry-and-louise-ads/

GOP Budget’s Attack On Obama Health Care Plan Echoes 1993 Harry And Louise Ads


The House GOP’s alternative budget released today is striking in one key way: It contains an attack on the Obama health care agenda that’s eerily reminiscent of the infamous 1993 “Harry and Louise” ads targeting Bill Clinton’s approach.

The similarities will give the Dems fodder to argue that the Republicans want to rehash old debates and aren’t serious about advancing new ideas suited to the moment. The GOP attack could also undercut the party’s claim that it wants to work in good faith with Obama and Dems to fix health care. It’s also unclear what specifically the GOP is targeting, as Obama and Dems have not settled on an official plan yet.

The GOP budget slams the Obama/Dem approach as a scheme to create a “government-run health insurance plan.” It warns that the result would be that “those who like the health insurance they have now likely will not be able to keep it.” And it warns that “bureaucrats would exercise increasing control over all health care decision making.”

Here’s the text of the 16-year-old Harry and Louise ad:

Louise: But this was covered under our old plan.

Harry: Oh, yeah, that was a good one, wasn’t it?

Narrator: Things are changing, and not all for the better. The government may force us to pick from a few health care plans designed by government bureaucrats.

Louise: Having choices we don’t like is no choice at all.

Harry: They choose.

Louise: We lose.

Narrator: For reforms that protect what we have, call toll free. Know the facts. If we let the government choose, we lose.

The similarities between the two attack lines are really striking.

It’s worth pointing out again that Obama and Dems haven’t formalized a plan, so it’s unclear what the Republican criticism is a direct reference to. And Obama’s stated principles are that “government-run health care” is an “extreme” that is “wrong,” that the new plan “strengthens employer coverage,” and “ensures patient choice of doctor and care without government interference.”

Whether or not these goals will actually be accomplished is an open question, obviously. But today’s GOP budget seems to make it clear that Republicans want to argue over health care on terms very similar to those used 16 years ago.

[county worker]

1. Bureaucrats would exercise increasing control over all health care decision making.”

They do now. They're called insurance companies. And about having to wait for care, if you are uninsured how long do you have to wait?

[damntexdem]

2. Reminiscent of ONE of the H&A ads.

But the Harry & Louise campaign was a very-sophisticated media campaign with an involved strategy. They started out like this one: 'we all support the President's plan, but there are a few issues with it.' Then they moved on to stronger criticism: 'we all support health reform, but the President's plan is not the way to do it.' Later, they voiced general problems with any meaningful reform, as in: 'it threatens the coverage you have now' and 'community rating hurts the young to the benefit of the old.' They then graduated to full-out opposition. All but two of the ads were slick things shot before the start of the campaign. The last two were add-ons after the Clinton plan was dead, clearly identifiable as such: a short lead-in with boilerplate from earlier H&A ads followed by a (former GOP member of congress) talking head droning on against congressional reform proposals -- one ad aimed at House proposals and one at Senate proposals. The campaign made use of the then-fairly-new medium of nationwide cable, running on CNN -- it was broadcast by regular TV generally in only 8 states, targeted because of vulnerable Democratic members of Congress (who were subsequently defeated in 1994).

We studied their campaign as it influenced public opinion in one state: http://jhppl.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/26/6/1325. By the way, our study was in the very-conservative state of Oklahoma, and shows that the H&A campaign was needed to head off public support for health coverage reform even there.

[babylonsister]

3. The fact that they're recycling something 15+ years old speaks

volumes to either laziness or a party with no new ideas. They're in disarray, as has been charitably said.