Uniquely American Solution - What is it ? Why is it being pushed?

[slipslidingaway]

Is the goal of the "uniquely American solution" to keep the private health care companies in business and protect their profits? It is not just the Democrats that are using the phrase, Karen Ignagni of AHIP wrote an article in April.


Some talking points from the Herndon Alliance and published on the Third Way site...

http://www.thirdway.org/data/product/file/235/Talking_Points_-_Responding_to_Attacks.pdf

2. Tap into key values the public places on reform:

» Stability and peace of mind
» The middle class
» Choice and control
» Quality
» Continuity—keeping your current plan and doctor
» Value—paying less and getting more
» Affordability
» Patriotism—“uniquely American solution”


http://www.thirdway.org/data/product/file/234/Messaging_Health_Reform.pdf

Phrases That Don’t Work

• Politically polarizing language such as talking about the Republicans’ failure to
address the health care crisis or using phrases like “unregulated greed” to
describe insurance companies (references to “excessive profits” are better).

• Don’t say “universal” health care. Talk about “quality, affordable health care for
all.” (But remember—quality, affordable health care for all is largely a message
about access.)

• Don’t compare the U.S. to other countries, or assert that America does not
provide quality health care. (i.e. Do not cite statistics that say the U.S. is 37th in
the world in health outcomes).


Uniquely American Solution: Collaboration, Leadership Required to Bring Change

Commentary on The Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Health Care Opinion Leaders Survey on Priorities for the Obama Administration by Karen Ignagni, CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans

April 27, 2009

Author(s): Karen Ignagni

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Commentaries/2009/Apr/Uniquely-American-Solution.aspx

"Significant consensus has emerged that health care reform, which has eluded our nation for almost a century, should be enacted this year, and that bold changes are necessary to ensure high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans...

In moving to pass legislation this year, Congress can create a uniquely American solution by encouraging and expecting uniquely American stakeholder responsibility."


Americans Support Single payer. Why Doesn't Celinda Lake?

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/december/americans_support_si.php

"...Similar strong support for Medicare for All was found the last time health reform was on the top of the nation’s agenda, during the Clinton administration. In 1993, a citizen jury sat for 8 hours a day for five days in Washington, DC before making their choice among the then-leading options for health reform: managed competition (supported by Clinton), medical savings accounts, and single payer. Single payer received 17 out of 24 votes (70 percent). There were 5 votes for Clinton’s plan, and none for medical savings accounts. Focus groups conducted that year by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake reported the same strong support for single payer. “After conducting extensive focus groups on health care, pollster Celinda Lake discovered that the more people are told about the Canadian system, “the higher the support goes.” In contrast, according to Lake, working Americans found the managed competition idea “laughable.” (“It’s Time for a Real Debate on National Health Insurance”)

So, how come Democratic pollster Celinda Lake now claims Americans won’t support single payer, and instead favor a plan that is a variant of managed competition? Because her latest research was brazenly biased. Kip Sullivan explains how and why..."



What Journalists Can Learn from Celinda Lake

http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/what_journalists_can_learn_fro_1.php

"First there was Frank Luntz. Now, Celinda Lake is trying to do for the Dems what Luntz did for the GOP. Lake, a longtime Democratic strategist, has been hard at work crafting the right words and phrases to persuade the public that Dems really do have their best health care interests in mind. For months, politicians, advocates, and especially the president have talked about “affordable, quality” health care—a Lake-fashioned phrase that has caught on big time. Reporters have repeated these words without providing any context about what they mean—that is, if they mean anything...


In early June, a memo circulated from the Herndon Alliance and Lake Research Partners telling advocacy groups and other interested parties precisely what words they should use to counter Republican messages as health reform’s verbal war begins. The Herndon Alliance, which calls itself a non-partisan coalition, has partnered with some 200 organizations, including former single-payer advocates, think tanks, foundations, advocacy groups, businesses, and health care providers. The Alliance claims to “provide value-added services to partner organizations”—i.e., helping them develop communications strategies. Lake has worked closely with the Alliance in crafting messages its partners can use. She has counseled the Alliance’s partners against using the term “universal coverage.” Maybe that’s why it’s not talked about much anymore. Similarly, she tells activists never to say “Medicare for all.” Instead, they should say “choice of public and private plans.”

...Lake says that frame is “so effective” because it taps into the public’s key expectations for health reform, such as the choice of keeping your current plan and doctor—the president uses that one; affordability (paying less and getting more)—lots of groups are using that one; and finding a uniquely American solution—insurance companies and Sen. Max Baucus have used that one. But wait a minute. Didn’t the phrase “uniquely American solution” surface with Bill Clinton? In the early 1990s, as Clinton began to craft his plan based on managed competition, he framed it as his “uniquely American plan.” How many uniquely American plans can there be? ..."


Reply to critics of “Bait and switch: How the ‘public option’ was sold”

http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/08/08/reply-to-critics-of-%e2%80%9cbait-and-switch-how-the-%e2%80%98public-option%e2%80%99-was-sold%e2%80%9d/

The Herndon Alliance was founded in 2005 by many of the same groups that would create HCAN in 2008. The Herndon Alliance paved the way for HCAN’s promotion of the “public option” with some laughable “research” claiming to find that Americans want a “public-private-plan choice” approach and don’t want a single-payer system. I have written elsewhere about the bogus “research” conducted by the Herndon Alliance. Suffice it to say here the Herndon Alliance cooked up a new and more insidious version of the “political feasibility” argument.

Until about 2007, when the Herndon Alliance first began publishing its “research,” there was only one variant of the “political feasibility” argument, the one that said the insurance industry is too powerful to beat. The Herndon Alliance variant claimed single-payer is not feasible because Americans don’t want it. According to this variant, American “values,” not the insurance industry, are actually the greatest impediment to single-payer. According to the Herndon Alliance, Americans “value choice of insurance company” and “they like the insurance they have and want to keep it.” HCAN and Hacker picked up these refrains and promoted them vigorously to the public and to members of Congress. This inexcusable attack on single-payer no doubt helped key committee chairs in Congress (Kennedy, Baucus, Waxman, Rangel and Miller) feel more comfortable taking single-payer off the table and concentrating on the “public option.”

By early 2009, it was clear the Hacker-HCAN-Herndon Alliance propaganda for the “public option” and against single-payer had worked with the Democratic leadership, and that the Democratic leadership would fall once again for a market-based alternative and remove single-payer from the table. The removal of single-payer legislation took place without the firing of a single shot in public by the insurance industry and the right wing. It took place at the request of the “yes but” wing..."