Why Healthcare Reform Could Fail

Bob,That’s because very few posts of yours as well as the gazillion other posts online don’t hit home.”WTF is the public option?” is probably the first question any outsider to the debate will bring up first. We constantly use terms that only people who keep up with politics or healthcare details would know, like “single-payer” and “public option”.The truth is people HATE hearing about healthcare and politics in general because just hearing about it reminds them of what a chore it is.You want to get to people? Remove the political buzz-words but ramp up the intelligence. Most people don’t know how healthcare works much less how their getting screwed over. People like human interest stories because they get it. It relates to them. Since the majority of people DO have healthcare coverage, even if it’s sucky, they are not going to invest time and energy on something they feel they don’t have to worry about.Make your writings relate to people without using phrases like “public option”.

Hey, come on, Bob! We’re also watching reruns of Star Trek and Survivor, and lapping up any news we can get on Michael Jackson, even if we’ve heard it a dozen times in the last hour.If I didn’t know better (and if I wasn’t into starting conspiracy theories) I’d say the health insurance industry killed Michael Jackson to turn everyone’s attention away from a PROBLEM that kills or bankrupts thousands every year.The truth is this: So long as our media is fickle as lemmings, NO REAL ISSUE will garner the attention it deserves.What we need is a scandal, or an epic catastrophe We need an illness, or a death so grotesque that the media cannot help itself from lapping up the spilled blood. We need an entire community to die because their health insurer refused to cover their cancer treatment. Or, we need someone with a few guns to walk into an insurer’s corporate office and open fire, claiming he was driven insane when the insurer denied his wife coverage, and she died as a result.I know, Bob, perish the thought. It’s sick to even think about it.Nevertheless, that is what the American media has become. Unless you can promise them blood, guts, scandal, and a weeks worth of 24/7 coverage, you ain’t got nothin’. Health care? Who cares?Unless the media gets to ask the questions, “What caused the killer to go beserk, and could anything have prevented it?”, we’re going to nowhere.

I’ve always seen HuffPo as a liberal blog about progressive issues that kept us informed and focused much better than the BBQ Media. Lately, however, it’s turned into an online version of the Today Show. It crams as much as it can in a small space and ends giving short shrift to important stories. Less important stories win “Big News Pages.” And let’s be honest. Sarah Palin resigning is fascinating in that watch-it-fall-from-the-sky-in-flames sort of way, but it’s not really news. She was a nobody prior to her selection for VP and she’s a nobody now, except that they treat her as News because she was selected as McCain’s running mate and failed spectacularly.I was going to comment to someone on FB yesterday that it’s amazing how the stories we were so energetic about here and elsewhere just a month ago have almost completely faded from view on what used to be our progressive news outlet. Torture, Dick Cheney’s guilt, health care reform, the effing economy have all been push from the forefront in favor of nonstop Sanford/Jackson/Palin coverage. Both are noteworthy, but don’t deserve more than a few hours anywhere above the fold.And we know what our Democratic leadership does when we turn our back on them for five minutes and let up the pressure. They get in the kitchen and fix one of their famous Shit Sandwiches (Now With Even MORE Capitulation on Progressive Issues!) and serve it up.

I told you so. Last fall I noticed the HuffPo’s shift to the right. Right meaning “superficial fucking non-sense.Very sad.But we have bobcesca.com and Lee “i’m liking him a little bit more he better stay the hell away from DcMonalds” Stranahan. Thank you both for being who you are.

Hey… maybe there’s something to what President Obama is asking activist groups to do, huh?QT

>>>>I told you so. Last fall I noticed the HuffPo’s shift to the right. Right meaning “superficial fucking non-sense.This isn’t about Huffington Post’s content, though. There are dozens of blog posts and dozens more news items about healthcare that aren’t in that list of popular items.

Unbelievable!! Obama just complained that he wants the Left to spend more resources on winning the health care debate and you all slammed him for it. Now you have a post saying health care reform might fail because of “disturbing lack of public interest”. Could it be, could. it. be. that this is exactly what Obama was talking about? Is it just possible that Obama wanted the Left to spend its resources educating the public about health care reform?

Amen, Allonfla… Which isn’t to say that “the Left” shouldn’t hold elected officials feet to the fire where they are clearly contradicting the wishes of their constituents. But the kind of work Obama is asking for is needed, valuable, and the very opposite of asking people to “shut up.”QT

Absolutely, QT. I don’t mind reminding Pols why they are in office but the reaction to Obama’s comments were just…………