Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post Piece from Creamer on Health Care Battle
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:39:39 EDT
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Fear, Anger, Hope and Inspiration will Decide Health Care  Battle 

The details of policy will not  decide the outcome of the health care 
reform battle.  In fact, the policy outcome itself will  be decided largely by 
the interplay of four emotions that will drive the outcome  of this 
essentially political battle: fear, anger, hope and  inspiration. 
The principal weapon of those who  want to maintain the status quo is, as 
always, fear. The Republicans and  their allies in the private health 
insurance industry are cranking up the fear  machine like the producers of a good 
horror movie.  They warn of a “government takeover of  health care,” “
socialized medicine,” “rationing” and the ever-frightening  prospect that a “
government bureaucrat” might stand between someone and her  doctor – or a 
needed medical treatment.  
Of course fear need not be rational. I talked to a Blue Dog Democrat the  
other day – one who favors a strong public option – who told of scores of 
calls  his office has received from older voters on Medicare, the government 
run health  care program for the elderly and disabled. The callers were 
frightened of a  “government takeover” of medicine.  Former Senator John Breaux 
once told a story about a woman who rushed up  to him in the airport to 
plead with him to “keep government out of her  Medicare.”  
Fear immobilizes.  And fear  of the unknown crushes the desire for change, 
even in the midst of conditions  that cry out for change. It has been used 
throughout history by those who profit  from the status quo, and it becomes 
especially important when – as is the case  with health care today – most 
people believe that the current system should in  fact be changed.  
Of course the insurance companies and the Right are not just using fear  to 
move public opinion.  Just as  importantly, they are using it to frighten 
key Members of Congress into  believing that an angry mobilized part of their 
constituency – and donors – will  exact political retribution.  For  some 
Blue Dog Democrats that fear is being used to mask the fact the President  
Obama’s health care proposals will produce some of their most profound 
benefits  precisely within the districts they represent.  In one notable case, the 
district has  150,000 uninsured citizens and only 900 families who would 
pay a surtax used to  pay the costs of the House Democratic Health Care bill.  
Anger, on the other hand, does  not immobilize like fear.  It energizes 
action.  In politics, anger is almost always a  necessary precursor to change 
and hope. American voters would not have been  willing to take a chance on 
the change and hope offered by the Obama campaign in  2008 if they were not 
already furious with the administration of George W. Bush  and its failed 
stewardship of our economy and foreign policy.  That anger stemmed from the 
sense that  everyday people could no longer look forward to better lives in the 
future.  Obama resolved that anger into the hope that change could bring 
them a better  life. 
The powerful elements that dominate the Republican Party and the  
Conservative Movement also focus the anger of people who feel they are losing  
control or have been passed by, but instead of resolving anger into hope, they  
resolve anger into fear of change – and fear of people who “aren’t like  them.
” 
To win the battle over health care – and all of the other major battles  
required to fulfill the promise of change – Progressives must engage the anger 
 of most Americans and do a better job mobilizing that anger than our 
right-wing  opponents.   
That means a populist  message.  It means focusing in  on the insurance 
executives who are perfectly willing to deny health care to  sick people  so 
that they can make  millions and millions of dollars and retire with massive 
golden parachutes.  It means we need to frame the debate as  a struggle 
between those with power -- and the majority of Americans.   
And it means that, for Members of  Congress, we have to channel that anger 
to induce fear—the fear that failure to  accomplish change will be more 
politically costly that voting for reform.   In the end, the winning message to  
most Members of Congress is that health insurance reform IS the high 
political  ground.   That is the  message we must deliver to every Member over the 
August recess in no uncertain  terms.  
Hope and change will not win out  if we don’t engage populist anger.  But 
success also requires that we paint a clear, positive picture of a  future 
where ordinary Americans no longer have to worry that they may not have  
access to health care.  
People aren’t engaged and motivated by statistics or “policies.”  The 
prospect of an “insurance exchange”  will not inspire people to take a risk on 
change.  To win this battle we need to get people  to imagine what it would 
be like if they no longer had to worry that if they got  sick and then lost 
their job, they might also lose their health care. We have to  remind them 
that 14,000 people are losing their health insurance every day– and  they 
could be next. They have to visualize the insurance company CEO who gets  the 
$73 million golden parachute and received a salary of $5,585 an hour ($12.2.  
million per year).  
In fact, to win this – or any other major political battle – we need to  
remember that changing people’s opinions and motivating them into action is  
mainly about engaging their emotions – hope, fear, anger, inspiration.  That 
means we need to make the issues at  stake palpable. People need to 
experienced them in the concrete, not as abstract  concepts.  They need to be 
turned  into images, stories and symbols that can make people see, feel, hear and 
taste  the issues, not just think about them.   
That brings us to  inspiration.  President Obama’s  ability to inspire is 
an enormous political asset. Being inspired is basically  the feeling of 
empowerment – empowerment to overcome odds – to overcome fear. In  the same way 
a blast furnace turns iron ore and coke into steel, inspiration  transforms 
fear and anger into hope. 
We need to inspire the country  that change is possible and will bring 
about a better health care system.  We need to inspire Members of Congress  that 
they can overcome their fear of insurance companies and special interests,  
and make history.  We need to keep  our own base inspired in order to keep 
them mobilized.   
In fact, our ability to compete with the insurance companies and the  
merchants of fear is entirely contingent on our ability to keep our base engaged  
and energized.  That is one of the critical reasons why, in  order to be 
successful, a health insurance reform plan must include a  strong public 
health insurance option.   
A strong public option is critically necessary to accomplish the  
Administration’s goals of controlling health care costs by competing with  private 
insurance companies, driving down rates and keeping them honest.  That is why 
the insurance industry hates  the proposal. 
But a public option is also critical because it inspires our base. Like  it 
or not, most Progressives in America have lost faith in the  private health 
insurance industry and its ability to provide health care at  reasonable 
prices for all Americans.  Many Americans joined the Obama campaign because 
they believed he – and  they together -- could make change in general, and 
change in the health care  system in particular.   
The public option has become a  symbol for most of these activists – the 
symbol of what defines real  change.  If the small band of  insurance 
company-friendly Democrats forces the entire Party and the  Administration to 
abandon this critical element of the Obama plan, the campaign  for health care 
reform will lose much of its ability to inspire activists to  action.  That 
would leave the  playing field to Rush Limbaugh and his insurance industry 
friends who use fear  to mobilize the right-wing base. 
Progressives cannot afford to fail in our battle for health insurance  
reform. It is a critical building block for the long-term economic success of  
our country.  It will also define  for millions of Americans whether they can 
make change – whether they can  take the future into their own hands and 
make their own history.  Our success in the health care battle  will in great 
measure determine our ability to continue to generate the kind of  
inspiration that is so critical to our ability to win all of the battles that  lie 
ahead.      
Robert Creamer is  a long-time political organizer and strategist, and 
author of the recent book:  “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,” 
available on _amazon.com_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206567141&sr=8-1
) . 

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