Anybody? Please? Well maybe I’m talking to the wrong crowd. After reflecting a bit on the current political debates surrounding health care reform and climate change legislation, I’ve come to one conclusion: our so-called “problem solvers” – Democrats in congress and the White House – need to take art lessons. For starters, they need to learn good composition, the appropriate treatment of light, proper perspective, and it probably would not hurt if they picked up some tips on finding the right frame as well.
One of the first and most critical steps in getting legislation through congress nowadays is selling it to the public. It’s all about how you paint the picture of what you are proposing, and how your proposals will affect average Americans. For no two issues has the slight of our politicians’ hands, the dearth of their artistic capabilities, become clearer than on health care and climate change legislation. Check out some of these public opinion numbers: merely 38% of Americans now support Obama’s health care proposal. Yep. According to Rasmussen, in a poll released on November 23, 2009, support for health care reform has hit an all-time low. Rasmussen’s numbers have always looked a little low on health care, but this isn’t Fox News we are talking about. Even worse, check out this:
“Only 16% now believe passage of the plan will lead to lower health care costs. Nearly four times as many (60%) believe the plan will increase health care costs. Most (54%) also believe passage of the plan will hurt the quality of care.”
For the rest of this post I’m going to discuss the poor framing that caused this public opinion nightmare and, then, suggest a more sensible approach. Let’s just call this “my frame is better than yours”.
Admittedly, I just as badly as anyone else wanted to frame the health care debate as a debate about morals and the character of the society in which we live. Look no further than my column “Defining the Character of our Nation: Lessons from Michael Jackson, Ted Kennedy, and the Brits” for evidence on that point. Unfortunately, this seems to appeal only to the uninsured and a few bleeding heart liberals like me. Roughly speaking, that’s probably only 50-60 million Americans. Compare that to the 250 million that are insured. This framing simply does not make sense. Think about it, would your favorite football team allow the opponents to start off a game with a 21 point lead? Of course not.
The simple point is that health care reform should have been framed in terms of costs and the quality of care. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) has expressed this sentiment repeatedly. In the Washington Times he said:
“I wish the president would have started the debate by explaining to the American people that our current health care system is not financially sustainable, for even another decade. Driving down health care costs should have been the focus of the debate.”
His key talking points on health care?
(1) The biggest contributor to the U.S deficit is federal spending on health care
(2) Medicare is on a path to go completely bankrupt in the next seven years and
(3) The average American family will soon dish out 40% of its disposable income on health care insurance premiums.
Similarly, at Senator Tom Harkin’s (D-IA) Annual Steak Fry, which I had the privilege of attending, Senator Al Franken (D-MN) said that when the tea baggers confronted him at the Minnesota State Fair, they could agree on one thing and one thing only: that doing nothing wasn’t an option, and that lowering costs should be the central focus of legislation.
Unfortunately, though, in politics there is no tabula rasa. We can’t just scrap the health care bill and start over next year. But, change starts with you. When you talk to your skeptical family and friends about health care, try talking about the need to lower costs and increase the quality of care, and how the proposed legislation does both. Let me know how they react.
I automatically love this column because you used The Allegory of Painting by Vermeer in it. A great choice, as he was a painter’s painter. He painted for himself and not a patron, so he was able to show off the cutting edge of art technique at the time through beautifully balanced compositions, use of color, and perspective. If the Democratic party wasn’t so cautious and cowardly, and crafted policy that was right and not popular. When you’re painting policy for billions of lobbying dollars spent by the health care industry or to sell it to the American people, the finished product won’t be all that pretty. I honestly believe that if policymakers made policy to the best of their ability, regardless of questions of whether it will pass or whether corporations will revolt or whether the people will follow, the result will be so much better in terms of the outcome that those other things will fall into place. Or maybe I’m just naive.
Matt,
This is amazing! I love it.
How did they react?
They literally threw pumpkin pie at me and made me play cribbage for several hours in order to ransom back my car keys.
But once the most hardcore nay-sayers out of the group finished attacking “That-Obama-And-His-Politics” as “Too-Close-To-Communism”, (it’s ironic that you mentioned Harkin and the good ol’ teabaggers) we did agree on one thing: saving money is good.
Which is ridiculous. Because it’s selfish and crude and short-sighted. But it’s simple and sounds yummy…unlike a smashed pumpkin pie.
We have to remember that, when marketing an idea to the general American public, an established rule of thumb in all media is to write at a below-high-school-level standard. They also make that idea as attractive as possible to convince their chosen audience of its worth. And why do they do this? Because they’re playing the game of making money.
And what are politicians doing? Despite all our idealistic hopes and optimistic dreams, they’re playing the game of getting reelected. Since that involves making their constituates happy, that’s what they generally do. When they don’t, what happens? They’re not reelected…and loose the game. (….I just lost the game.) But lets consider the game of marketing attractive legislation and reelection on the national level and vaguely say the target audience for that legislation is “Americans”. As sad as it may be, we have to come to grips with the fact that just like McDonalds and Wal-Mart commercials earn business by offering yummy/albeit selfish/short-sighted/sometimes crude incentives, the only way for politicians to earn votes is to offer clear-cut incentives to their American audience in below-high-school-reading-level terms. Even when they’re offering plans for world peace and solutions to world hunger. The fact that we need to create a general consensus before passing legislation is built into our political system. And how do you build consesus? Persuasion.
I’m all for education-of-the-public-as-a-solution-to-all-our-problems. Listing off the ways in which an America with healthcare reform would be a better place -should- be enough to get the troops moving. However, some facts mean nothing to the apathetic. And the only way that politicians are going to win the game is by rallying the apathetic. I’ll generalize and say that most politicians take the easy road and rally their constituents to inaction. I’ll generalize even more disgustingly and say that sometimes, the only way you can encite change is by dumbing down your argument and poking at a shallow/universal/selfish topic like money or… saving money … or free money. (It’s not a secret that entire campaigns have been run and won on lowering taxes.) Unless we start a violent, bloody cultural revolution and forcefully stop advertising companies from feeding on the fundamentally selfish natures of the American people, we’re just going to have to come to grips with the fact that the American people need enticing. …sometimes abhorrent, feels-like-you’re-selling-your-soul enticement. That’s why most college events offer food… That’s why almost all advertisement has sexual undertones or feeds on economic or social fears.
In the words of Boston, I think ‘the future’s coming way too slow’, but I know what I like: truth. And, yeah, Jordan: I believe that everything’ll eventually fall into place if the legislators write up a truth-based, righteously-effective solution to the nation’s problems…but only after we play the game of politics and make it sound sexy. As long as Americans like money, it’ll never be too late for healthcare reform marketed in Warner’s terms. Even when our economy isn’t in dire straits who turns down money for nothing?
[...] you read my recent post “Can Somebody Paint Me a Decent Picture? Part 1: Health Care Reform” you might be thinking to yourself right about now that McConnell has succeeded perpetrating this [...]