An Ad Script For Teddy Kennedy On Healthcare Reform
[Originally ran June 15, 2009 -- see note at bottom]
In the debate about healthcare reform, why are the loudest voices in the room the ones who seemingly are against all reform? Where are the champions of the progressive ideas? I've asked this question (at great length) before, and while President Obama has started to (half-heartedly) speak up for "the public option," so far nobody else seems to be defending the idea at all. To say this is a disappointment is an understatement. Part of the problem is that the senator all Democrats are deferring to on the issue is Teddy Kennedy. Who has his own problems with healthcare right now, which precludes his being a leading and forceful voice to the public on the issue.
Or does it?
That thought prompted me to write the following television ad script for Kennedy's staff to consider. Now, I fully admit that the language could be changed slightly to highlight different facets of the very complex problem healthcare reform presents, but I think the basic idea is a good one. See if you agree.
[Fade-in to Senator Edward Kennedy lying in a hospital bed. Various high-tech machines surround him, but are muted, with no "beep beep" noises to distract.]
KENNEDY: "Hello. I'm Senator Edward Kennedy, and I'd like to talk to you about an issue I've been championing for 40 years in Washington: healthcare reform."
[Camera switches angles to more close-up shot]
KENNEDY: "A lot of people are saying a lot of things right now about the different ideas for healthcare reform that are currently being discussed in Congress. Some of these, frankly, are just untrue -- which is why I felt it was necessary to speak to you today."
[Scene changes to show various newspaper headlines showing worst of critics' quotes about "government-run healthcare."]
KENNEDY: "The first principle we started with is that any American who likes the healthcare they have now will not have to change it. If you like your plan, you do nothing, and you keep your plan and your doctor. Don't believe anybody who tells you different."
[Scene shows some stock footage of overwhelmed emergency room -- either a series of still shots, or show in slow motion.]
KENNEDY: "But, sadly, not everyone in America is happy with their healthcare, and not everyone has access to affordable healthcare -- which leads many to do without it because they can't afford it."
[Still shot of a gavel and a judge's hand.]
KENNEDY: "And some who thought they had good health insurance have still wound up going bankrupt because they got sick -- after spending their life's savings on medical bills the insurance company bureaucrats wouldn't pay for."
[Back to Kennedy, medium-shot showing hospital bed again.]
KENNEDY: "We think that's wrong, and that's what President Obama and Democrats are trying to change. But everything we have suggested so far has been attacked by people who simply can't see that there even is a problem with our healthcare system. Most Americans don't need to be told that a problem exists -- because almost everyone has a family member or a friend with a horror story about how expensive healthcare has become."
[Scenes of angry Republican leadership faces, in still black-and-white shots.]
KENNEDY: "But still, some are trying to scare you by saying that Democrats want the government to radically 'take over' healthcare -- which is just not true. The federal government is already in the healthcare business, and serves millions through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration. None of these are perfect, but then private insurance isn't perfect either."
[Back to Kennedy's face, close-up.]
KENNEDY: "Which is why we want to offer Americans a public option to compete with the private health insurance industry. Nobody would be forced to try this, which is why it is called an 'option.' But we believe giving Americans this freedom to choose a public option is important. Republicans want to deny you this option. We think you're smart enough to decide for yourself whether it would work for you or not."
[Headlines from the 1960s and 1930s ripping into Medicare, Medicaid, etc.]
KENNEDY: "You know, every time healthcare reform is brought up, the naysayers always predict the death of the private insurance industry. They said this when Democrats passed Medicare, and they said it when Democrats passed Medicaid. But neither one killed private insurance, and the public option we are proposing now will not kill private health insurance either. The people who predicted doom for the insurance industry were wrong back then, and they are wrong now."
[Return to medium-shot of Kennedy.]
KENNEDY: "All we want to do is add some competition to bring the price of health insurance down for everyone. This competition will force insurance companies to rein in their out-of-control cost hikes. I'm not sure why Republicans are against the idea of the free marketplace, or why they're so scared of a government-run program out-competing the private industry, because they've been saying for years that nothing the government does is as efficient or as good as what private industry can do."
[Kennedy, close-up of face.]
KENNEDY: "What we want is not a 'takeover' of healthcare by the government, what we want is to give Americans the choice -- in the form of a public option -- of a different way of delivering healthcare. If you don't like that option, nobody is going to force you to sign up for it. If you try it and don't like it, nobody is going to force you to stay in it. If you like your healthcare as it is, you won't have to do anything. But some may think the public option makes sense for them. Which is all we're trying to do -- to give them that choice."
[Kennedy, long shot showing whole hospital bed and equipment.]
KENNEDY: "Don't deny Americans this choice, that is all we are asking. Even if you decide it's not for you, don't deny your neighbor the choice -- which may mean the difference between no healthcare and having healthcare. I ask you to write or call your representatives in Congress, and ask them to support the public option for real healthcare reform.
"Thank you."
OK, it's a bit long, even for a 60-second ad. It could be tightened up. Or perhaps spit into a few different ads which address different angles. And, yes, it is manipulative to show Kennedy in a hospital bed. And perhaps the word "Republican" could be changed to "reform opponents" or something, in a more bipartisan spirit.
But sometimes you have to play the hand you're dealt. And Kennedy, if he weren't in the midst of his own battle against illness right now, would assumably be all over the place speaking in a loud voice about what the Democrats were for. Nobody has stepped into the void Kennedy's health problems have caused (Senator Chris Dodd seems to be trying, but hasn't really been vocal enough yet). And, like Obama, Kennedy enjoys both name recognition and high approval ratings all over the country.
So, what do you think? If you think the idea has merit, let Kennedy's staff know. Personally, I think it's time for a strong voice for the public option, even if it comes from a hospital bed.
[Program Note: This is a rerun of a column which was originally published June 15, 2009. As I was researching Obama's second 100 days in office, I came across three columns on healthcare reform tactics and strategy for Democrats which, sadly, are still just as valid as when I wrote them. Rather than have the site go blank, we are repeating these columns for the first three days of this week. Regular columns will resume on Thursday.]
-- Chris Weigant
From Arianna Huffington to Camille Paglia...
These are staunch Democrats and liberals to the core..
And they are saying the exact same things about ObamaCare that I have been saying for months now. And her thoughts on liberals in general and their faux liberalism? (emphasis added) It could have easily been written by myself.
How anyone can believe that this abomination will pass muster is beyond me..
Obama's healthcare horror
Heads should roll -- beginning with Nancy Pelosi's!
By Camille Paglia
Aug. 12, 2009 | Buyer's remorse? Not me. At the North American summit in Guadalajara this week, President Obama resumed the role he is best at -- representing the U.S. with dignity and authority abroad. This is why I, for one, voted for Obama and continue to support him. The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair. Obama has barely begun the crucial mission that he was elected to do.
Having said that, I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama's chief of staff, and hope it's a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys.
Case in point: the administration's grotesque mishandling of healthcare reform, one of the most vital issues facing the nation. Ever since Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation of our last best chance at reform in 1993 (all of which was suppressed by the mainstream media when she was running for president), Democrats have been longing for that happy day when this issue would once again be front and center.
But who would have thought that the sober, deliberative Barack Obama would have nothing to propose but vague and slippery promises -- or that he would so easily cede the leadership clout of the executive branch to a chaotic, rapacious, solipsistic Congress? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom I used to admire for her smooth aplomb under pressure, has clearly gone off the deep end with her bizarre rants about legitimate town-hall protests by American citizens. She is doing grievous damage to the party and should immediately step down.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Obama's aggressive endorsement of a healthcare plan that does not even exist yet, except in five competing, fluctuating drafts, makes Washington seem like Cloud Cuckoo Land. The president is promoting the most colossal, brazen bait-and-switch operation since the Bush administration snookered the country into invading Iraq with apocalyptic visions of mushroom clouds over American cities.
You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.
I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.
As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.
With the Republican party leaderless and in backbiting disarray following its destruction by the ideologically incoherent George W. Bush, Democrats are apparently eager to join the hara-kiri brigade. What looked like smooth coasting to the 2010 election has now become a nail-biter. Both major parties have become a rats' nest of hypocrisy and incompetence. That, combined with our stratospheric, near-criminal indebtedness to China (which could destroy the dollar overnight), should raise signal flags. Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?
What does either party stand for these days? Republican politicians, with their endless scandals, are hardly exemplars of traditional moral values. Nor have they generated new ideas for healthcare, except for medical savings accounts, which would be pathetically inadequate in a major crisis for anyone earning at or below a median income.
And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech.
But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.
So now we see how Democrats "lead"..
By insulting and attacking every day Americans who have the un-mitigated gall to actually ask questions and demand answers..
And for that, Democrat leaders call these people "un-American"???
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!??
So, when groups like Code Pink or Move On act like unruly mobs, that is "democracy in action."
But when every day Americans totally non-representative of any organized group do it, all of the sudden, it's "un-American".
Again I ask...
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!??
After insulting the protesters for their actions and their questioning, Democrat leaders have hit upon a new idea to win over Americans.
Question their patriotism!
Good call, Dems...
THAT'll serve ya'all well in 2010...
Anyone wanna lay bets as to who will be the dominant party after the 2010 mid-terms??
Anyone?? Anyone?? Beuhler??
So much for the vaunted "demise" of the GOP, eh? :D
Sometimes I hate being right all the time.. :D
Michale.....
Michale (and everyone) -
Just a note, if you're going to post a column, please limit it to four or five paragraphs, and provide a link to the original. It's not the length of your comments, it is the fact that a lot of times this is copyrighted stuff, and the "fair use" loophole doesn't cover using the whole article.
In future, please, everyone, keep this in mind. I don't want to have to pull comments, but if threatened with legal action I will have to. Let's all work towards avoiding that pro-actively.
-CW
Will do..
My apologies for the extra work I caused you. I have done it a couple times in the past few columns.
When the cat's away yada yada yada.
My bust.
Michale....