rssIt’s All About the Framing
Wednesday, September 02, 2009 at 11:23 am
- 5 Comments
From the lessons to be learned (or not) from the Massachusetts experience with health care reform comes this bit of history from James Mongan, president and CEO of Partners HealthCare: The policy matters less than the framing of it.
Speaking yesterday at a health reform forum in Washington sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Mongan, a former aide to the Senate Finance Committee and a health official under the Carter administration, said that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) was able to sell the the controversial individual mandate provision — which requires all residents to buy health insurance — by declaring it to be an issue of personal responsibility, not taxes.
He managed to put forth this idea of an individual mandate, which had been put forth before in Washington by Sen. [Robert] Dole [R-Kan.] but quickly rolled back, because people said that if an employer mandate’s a tax [then] surely an individual mandate’s a tax.
But Gov. Romney said, ‘No, it’s not a tax, it’s personal responsibility.’ And people bought this switch and framing.
Perhaps something for President Obama to consider as he weighs how to present his health reform demands to Congress and the country.
5 Comments
Comment posted September 2, 2009 @ 5:29 pm
…What if it really IS about personal responsibility?
Comment posted September 2, 2009 @ 5:39 pm
It should be about personal responsibility. The Democrats keep telling the people that the government will take care of them. The government can't take care of everyone. They are so much in debt that they are in trouble. It is about time people take responsibility for themselves.
Comment posted September 2, 2009 @ 9:07 pm
The Republicans keep saying the Democrats keep telling the people that the government will take care of them. We've seen what happens when Republicans run things; 9/11, Anthrax attacks, economic collapse due to corruption and deregulation, widespread corruption in public and private, degenerate sexual escapades by conservatives, Katrina.
What will it take for people to realize that just like the public utilities, health care is a market failure that benefits everyone when a government entity regulates it? When will Obama start telling this simple truth?
Pingback posted September 4, 2009 @ 3:47 am
[...] Everything in Washington is messaging. As James Mongan, president and CEO of Partners HealthCare, said Monday, even controversial proposals like individual insurance mandates can be successful when framed [...]
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