Topic: Health Care
The Health Care Scare If the Republicans don't have the votes to kill Health Care reform, maybe they can scare up a few moreby Raven West, J.D.
(libertarian)
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Forget about love. Forget about money. Forget about promises of fame and fortune. The greatest motivator since the dawn of time is fear.
Advertising companies use fear above all else to motivate consumers to buy their products. For example, prior to around 2002, white teeth were something only really needed by actors and models. Normal people bought toothpaste to eliminate bad breath and the fluoride helped lower the rate of cavities, but in the past few years, that wasn't enough for toothpaste companies. They needed a new way to sell more of their product by creating a solution to a problem which never really existed.
Suddenly, teeth whitening products began popping up on every store shelf. Advertisers began promoting that white teeth weren't just nice to look at, but were absolutely necessary in order for you to lead a rich, successful life. Without whiter than white teeth, you wouldn't meet that great new guy, get the job promotion, win the competition, and your self-confidence will be shot.
The diet industry has long known how fear is the main motivation behind dieting. If you're FAT, you're unloved, despised, pitied. Take a pill, down a liquid, thin is in, and anyone who has a few extra pounds on them will be laughed at and ridiculed.
So, let's take this to the next level of selling a government program, say Health Care reform.
The debate over this issues has been going on for more than a decade, but never, in all its history, has fear been used as a tool on either side.
Obama and the democrats tell us our current health care system is failing, and we need to fix it NOW, or people are going to become sick and die. There won't be any hospitals or enough doctors or medicine to care for the weak and the old. We must sell this product, you must have health insurance, and you must have it today!
Or else.
Fear works both ways. Early arguments of the cost of universal health care coverage wasn't really getting that much support. The public already knew it would cost more, yet they were all rallying around Obama's message on the campaign trail. Even some Republicans could see some merit to an improved system, once upon a time, but once the opposition took hold, all gloves were off.
The anti-reformers looked at their weak argument and noticed that no one was listening to them. Increased taxes to pay for heath care was just not strong enough to motivate opposition. So, they turned to the only way they could think of to motivate people to... well, to do what they wanted. They used any line, any sentence, any word in the entire bill to create nationwide fear of the entire proposal.
They began using fear words like "death panels" and "Nazi's" and of course the number one fear monger guy for all reasons Hitler, and suddenly any mention of health care reform was shouted down in public forums. Rationality went out the window and panic entered in its place.
When one begins to use fear as a motivator, fear takes on a life of its own, usually to very detrimental ends. It's almost impossible to make any forward movement when everyone is running in all directions. When everyone runs in fear, they don't take the time to ask questions, or to listen to facts. They hear the dire warnings and instinctively react in fear.
Chicken Little is an old fable about a chicken who believes the sky is falling when an acorn falls on its head. It then runs through the town screaming about imminent end of the world panic and whips the populace into mass hysteria.
The phrase, "The sky is falling," has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent.
So, we now have Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey and Turkey Lurkey, in the guise of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilley, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, leading the panic masses who scream down those who are trying to hold a rational debate on an issue which is far from a disaster.
While it may be true, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself", it sure makes a very good motivator when used to sell a product, or kill a health care bill.
Forget about love. Forget about money. Forget about promises of fame and fortune. The greatest motivator since the dawn of time is fear.
Advertising companies use fear above all else to motivate consumers to buy their products. For example, prior to around 2002, white teeth were something only really needed by actors and models. Normal people bought toothpaste to eliminate bad breath and the fluoride helped lower the rate of cavities, but in the past few years, that wasn't enough for toothpaste companies. They needed a new way to sell more of their product by creating a solution to a problem which never really existed.
Suddenly, teeth whitening products began popping up on every store shelf. Advertisers began promoting that white teeth weren't just nice to look at, but were absolutely necessary in order for you to lead a rich, successful life. Without whiter than white teeth, you wouldn't meet that great new guy, get the job promotion, win the competition, and your self-confidence will be shot.
The diet industry has long known how fear is the main motivation behind dieting. If you're FAT, you're unloved, despised, pitied. Take a pill, down a liquid, thin is in, and anyone who has a few extra pounds on them will be laughed at and ridiculed.
So, let's take this to the next level of selling a government program, say Health Care reform.
The debate over this issues has been going on for more than a decade, but never, in all its history, has fear been used as a tool on either side.
Obama and the democrats tell us our current health care system is failing, and we need to fix it NOW, or people are going to become sick and die. There won't be any hospitals or enough doctors or medicine to care for the weak and the old. We must sell this product, you must have health insurance, and you must have it today!
Or else.
Fear works both ways. Early arguments of the cost of universal health care coverage wasn't really getting that much support. The public already knew it would cost more, yet they were all rallying around Obama's message on the campaign trail. Even some Republicans could see some merit to an improved system, once upon a time, but once the opposition took hold, all gloves were off.
The anti-reformers looked at their weak argument and noticed that no one was listening to them. Increased taxes to pay for heath care was just not strong enough to motivate opposition. So, they turned to the only way they could think of to motivate people to... well, to do what they wanted. They used any line, any sentence, any word in the entire bill to create nationwide fear of the entire proposal.
They began using fear words like "death panels" and "Nazi's" and of course the number one fear monger guy for all reasons Hitler, and suddenly any mention of health care reform was shouted down in public forums. Rationality went out the window and panic entered in its place.
When one begins to use fear as a motivator, fear takes on a life of its own, usually to very detrimental ends. It's almost impossible to make any forward movement when everyone is running in all directions. When everyone runs in fear, they don't take the time to ask questions, or to listen to facts. They hear the dire warnings and instinctively react in fear.
Chicken Little is an old fable about a chicken who believes the sky is falling when an acorn falls on its head. It then runs through the town screaming about imminent end of the world panic and whips the populace into mass hysteria.
The phrase, "The sky is falling," has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent.
So, we now have Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey and Turkey Lurkey, in the guise of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilley, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, leading the panic masses who scream down those who are trying to hold a rational debate on an issue which is far from a disaster.
While it may be true, as Franklin D. Roosevelt said that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself", it sure makes a very good motivator when used to sell a product, or kill a health care bill.
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article are those of Raven West, J.D. only and do not represent
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Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2009-08-20 18:23:16
Umm... I'm afraid I don't agree that fear has never been used before in the health care debate. To the contrary, it's been used from the beginning. Even Medicare and Medicaid were originally sold based on fear, the fear that without them, Grandma and poor people might not be able to afford serious care.
Of course, because the various solutions have been implemented over time, none of us can afford health care anymore. For many of us, even our insurance companies can't afford it anymore, and we can't even afford the premiums.
Go back to the earliest days of employer tax deductions for health insurance offered to employees. This was also fear-based. Proponents suggested that if Congress didn't allow such tax deductions, companies would not be able to afford to offer such benefits to their employees.
Of course now, even with the corporate tax deduction, most companies find that they can't afford the benefit anyway.
Just goes to show the power of fear, and it's destructive impact.
I am puzzled why comparisons to Hitler are off the table. Hitler had a very methodical and planned approach to gain control of the German people, and then to enforce the control.
During Hitler's rise to power, he had his thugs show up at the beer halls, and rough up those opposed to his view. Hitler would join in the fracas without hesitation. So union members getting rough at town hall meetings is nothing new.
This is not just fear about health care. People are fed up. Finance bailouts, auto bailouts, more power to the Fed, and now a takeover of the Health Care in America. People do not care that it started under Bush, as Obama is so adamant to point out. People want it to stop.
And despite what you may believe, people are listening to facts. They are reading the bill, they are asking questions as never before, and they are not buying the answers given.
If it is too complicated to understand, if it needs to be explained at every turn, then we have a right to be suspicious. We know how government works. In the middle of bill X, they stick in Y. And we are stuck with it forever.
Do not dismiss the American public because they have had it with the power grab. By the time the Germans had had it with the power grab, there was no power left to grab. It had already been consolidated in the wrong hands.
It is up to the person selling you the bill of goods to alleviate your concerns. They are not doing the job. So now they are going to change ther rules. That will not rest well with the American people either. It's like playing a football game without a clock, and the referee blows the whistle only when the desired team is ahead.
"Love your Country.
Distrust your Government."
There is a reason that saying exists. Figure out why.
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2009-08-21 06:50:37
Hi Raven West,
Yep, fear is the most powerful political tool. Always has been, always will be. Progressives have spent a century dumbing down citizens by controlling their access to knowledge. They have spent 50 years crushing the markets that create lower costs and better quality. They have worked diligently generation after generation to slowly undermine resistance to a take-over by the socialist elite. Now, finally, when the rest of the world is waking up to the nightmare consequences their socialism has wrought the desperate socialists in this country are making one last Hail Mary pass at creating their El Dorado.
Either way it will fail. If it gets passed it will just hasten the financial collapse of the country...which is hastened quite enough already...or it will fail before it is passed. Hopefully it fails in the latter manner because if it passes before it fails the damage it does to the future will be orders of magnitude worse.
Either way it will fail becasue it is an unsustainable plan based on a promise to satisfy an unbounded need. It is fantasy and it will fail. Just like it will fail in the UK, Canada and anywhere else it is tried.
Fear is powerful but economic reality is immutable.
The reason there is so much confusion over this bill is because it is indeed a confusing bill. Usually when you want to read something you start at the beginning... (seems logical to me.) But if you read this bill that way you will first find some generalities that tell you nothing. Then you get some definitions that read like this:
"1 (c) GENERAL DEFINITIONS.—Except as otherwise
2 provided, in this division:
3 (1) ACCEPTABLE COVERAGE.—The term ‘‘ac-
ceptable coverage’’ has the meaning given such term
5 in section 202(d)(2).
6 (2) BASIC PLAN.—The term ‘‘basic plan’’ has
7 the meaning given such term in section 203(c).
8 (3) COMMISSIONER.—The term ‘‘Commis9
sioner’’ means the Health Choices Commissioner es10
tablished under section 141.
11 (4) COST-SHARING.—The term ‘‘cost-sharing’’
12 includes deductibles, coinsurance, copayments, and
1 similar charges but does not include premiums or
2 any network payment differential for covered serv-
ices or spending for non-covered services."
Did that tell you anything? It didn't do much for me.
This bill (HR-3200) has over 1000 pages of mumbo jumbo similar to that. What does it all mean? You tell me. And I'll bet dollars to donuts our elected congress-critters haven't read it either.
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2009-08-21 07:09:08
Just a comment about EJ's queston "why comparisons to Hitler are off the table"?
They aren't. It's just that such comparisons are not constructive and detract from the credibility of those who resort to them. (Hitler was a right-wing socialist...very little in common with Obama's far-left socialism.)
It is the socialism they have in common. Invoking Hitler's name carries a boatload of emotional baggage that has nothing to do with any of Obama's horrible plans and horrendous visions for America...and the world.
Such comparisons are worse than useless, they are detrimental to the struggle against the relentless rot of socialism. Better is to use words like "Obamunism" which history will define as exactly Barack Obama's brand of Socialism just like Nazism was Hitler's specific brand of Socialism.
Posted By: Donna Maskell
Date: 2009-08-21 07:44:30
Raven West --
Rahm Emmanuel has been often quoted as saying words to the effect that a crisis should be exploited because then you can accomplish things you thought you never could. In the case of health care, admittedly some people have no insurance and some people run up huge medical bills that they cannot pay, so they lose everything and it still isn't enough. Insurance companies keep raising the costs and, for good business reasons, exclude people with pre-existing conditions. But is there a real crisis when 90% of the people (or so) are apparently happy with their insurance/health care situation?
Any situation can be improved, but the current Congress/administration are focused on a specific set of activities that they consider improvements, but not all of those things are popular. It doesn't seem to me that the elected officials have been all that open-minded about dissent, alternative ideas, or doing a proof-of-concept phase before plastering universal health care coverage on the whole country. As much as people like Medicare, it is underfunded, and everything that prolongs life (including eating right and exercising) increases the long-term cost of medical care. There is no proof that the proposed legislation (HR 3200) is scalable to more people, living longer (even in relatively ideal health).
Why is the administration and the Congressional majority in such a hurry? They are adamant that something be done this year, and that the "something" has to include their preferred activities (e.g. alleged solutions). Medicare was enacted in 1965, 190 years (roughly) after the United States became a nation. and it is an extremely popular unsustainable failure that is doomed to go belly up somewhere down the line, supported as it is by public tax subsidies. We do need a solution, but since that solution is going to involve unpleasant choices, it shouldn't be done in the few months before Christmas, and it probably shouldn't be done by 536 people (House, Senate, President) who don't genuinely know the will of the people, no matter how convinced they may be that they do.
I favor a national referendum. But first I favor a lot more debate on alternative solutions.
I disagree. To be dismissive of comparisons to Hitler's rise to power negates what potential Obama has with his horrible plans and visions, as you describe. It's as if we are saying no one could be as horrific as Hitler, so it is a useless comparison. The ones that normally object the most do not present their side of the argument to show how it is not like a Hitler tactic. They merely dismiss it because we allow them to object to the Hitler comparison.
The truth is, it could turn out worse than Hitler. Government is more powerful, can be more efficient, and can control us in ways Hitler would have envied.
The power in understanding and using Hitler as a reference point is understanding how Hitler used the charisma and power in his early years to manipulate the masses, and how the same is being attempted today. To ignore it "because of the baggage is a dangerous mistake.
Today, what you describe as Obamaunism, most would never believe could happen. That is why it is so important to understand how it happens, regardless of whether you label it right wing or far left socialism.
One must be ever-vigilant of what can happen because it has happened.
compliment you on the article, the ability to see both sides is "priceless" and shows your own lack of fear.
one thing I would add is that "fear" is used when truth will not support the side of the argument the fearmonger is on. They resort to trying to scare people away from the other guys argument rather than showing the strength [which obviously is lacking] of their own.
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