Health Care Reform Speech– Obama’s Top Five Tactics
Support for Health Care takeover is quickly slipping away. To stop the slide, President Obama has scheduled yet another prime time speech to inspire the nation to accept His wisdom over voter’s personal judgment. Unfortunately for members of Congress, they will be required to attend this Speech. After two disastrous press conference appearances, the President had to come up with a bigger and better way to roll out the teleprompter and make one more pitch for taking over one sixth of the US economy. Whether the President will actually roll out any new ideas is a mystery. The networks weren’t going to forgo reruns of Hannah Montana to cove another presser, so He had to make this a speech before a joint session of the US Congress.
Obama advisors have hung on to the childish belief that a strong personality and effective communication are more important than facts. The plain fact is that the current health care proposals will result in:
- exceptionally high costs to taxpayers,
- rationing of care,
- IRS involvement in the health care industry,
- restrictions on freedom of choice regarding end of life issues, and
- on and on
Congress made the mistake of letting the public read the bills Democrats were proposing. Rational discussion of the proposal then led to the logical conclusion that all of these ‘really bad’ things will in fact become reality should the Democrat’s plan become law. The only chance the Democrats had was to withhold the content of the legislation until after it was passed. Team Obama believes that a good speech can overcome these realities.
How stupid does the President believe the American people are? We will certainly find out Wednesday evening. Basing His decision to speak to the country before a joint session of Congress, President Obama will employ five –until recently- tried and true Democrat tactics to regain support for taking over the American health care industry. However, unless He plainly removes the ‘public option’ from the legislation – a point he went the opposite direction on in his AFL-CIO speech over the weekend – Obama will show that he doesn’t respect American’s ability to reason for themselves. Should He take this tack, He may ruin the rest of his Presidency. And to quote a famous pirate, “one can only hope.”
So here are the top five predicted tactics that the President will employ to save the movement to ruin American Health Care:
5. Demonize – the opposition – A tactic that brings back memories of Ted Kennedy vs. Robert Bork and Bill Clinton vs. anyone with a brain, President Obama will accuse conservatives and Republicans of not offering their own version of health care reform. Conservatives believe that another version of taking over the health care system is not acceptable and of course have not offered an alternative. Two Republican ideas already shot down in Congress were:
- Restricting care to US Citizens only by requiring some proof of citizenship, and
- Allowing insurance carriers to compete nationwide – something not currently allowed
The failure of these options indicates that Congressional lefties intend to provide health care to illegal aliens at taxpayer expense and intend to restrict consumer’s ability to purchase plans from better carriers in other states. The latter option also ensures a lower degree of competition which results in higher prices and costs to American consumers.
4. Paint a grand vision – for American Society – President Obama believes that He won the election because of his ‘Hope and Change’ message. The slogan worked even though it was void of specifics. The problem with health care is that Democrats committed their ideas to paper in the proposed legislation and now that the specifics are available to anyone who can read. Most of those that did read the bills are very much against the proposals. Obama believes that painting the vision of a grand and kind nation that takes better care of its illegal aliens than it does of its senior citizens will turn into a sure winner in 2012. Obama better hope that these senior citizens won’t be around to vote in 2012.
3. Engage in high theater and drama – by telling stories – The Hollywood lefties have offered a bit of advice to the President in that a good performance will go a long way to convince people to take action that is not in their best interest. The President will no doubt have one or two (possibly more) heart touching, tear jerking stories of those who suffered terribly because of a lack of health insurance. Of course the media will fail to validate any of these stories. Theater and drama are hallmarks of Democrat administrations, but as movie producers have known for generations, the same film only draws well for one or two weekends. After that, the support withers considerably. Obama is doing yet another ‘rerun’ of his past health care speeches. Past reruns haven’t fared well and have only driven support lower. This speech may send support straight into the tank. “One can only hope.”
2. Make it Personal – After all, the Obama Presidency is all about Obama. After the passing of the last Kennedy, there is no longer any unofficial American Royalty. MSNBC loser Chris Mathews opined that Obama is the “last Kennedy brother” because Teddy anointed Him during the last election. Despite the complicity of most in the Washington/New York media club, Americans really don’t want a royal system of government run by decrees and executive edicts. Obama and the Democrats would very much like such a system as long as they are the ones in power. Look for the President to bring up his family’s health history as part of the theater and drama act in a last ditch effort to make the story compelling, personal and worthy of throwing one’s own common sense and judgment out the window.
1. Simply deny – that bad things will happen (IRS involvement, Rationing, End-of-Life, No Freedom of Choice). This is perhaps the most interesting tactic to expect. Obama and the Congressional supporters who tried to force-feed health care takeover to the American voters have simply denied that the bad things will happen. Obama has time and again stated that rationing won’t happen, you will be able to keep your insurance plan if you like it, and on and on. What kind of argument is this? As the Monty Python troop noted long ago, “simply denying something isn’t an argument.” Obama is indeed becoming worthy of an appearance on Monty Python’s Flying Circus – if only they were still taping. Repeating the same message over and over hasn’t been effective and won’t be in the future. If Obama can’t provide specific examples of how and why rationing will not occur, and how 500ish billion can be cut from Medicare (for redistribution to illegal aliens and others who can afford insurance but won’t pay for it) without causing a restriction on available treatment to seniors, He will certainly lose this argument as well.
Obama is up against the crushing weight of logic in the Health Care Debate. Americans are over the ‘Hope and Change’ message and want specifics that can be debated. And when they are debated in a free and open forum, Americans should be over the ‘health care takeover’ as well. One can only hope.
