Time For Democrats To Play Hardball With The Healthcare Narrative

Gary over at TPM raises a significant point on the healthcare debate, asking “Ever wonder why Republicans aren’t holding live town halls on healthcare?”  The conclusion at which he arrives – and I am inclined to agree with him – is that no Republican politician in his right mind wants to stare down the human misery caused by the for-profit health insurance system we have today.

Imagine a 53 year old woman stands up and says her husband died of cancer last year.  She says he had limited coverage but couldn’t afford the out of pocket costs for treatments that could have saved his life.  Now she has cancer and her insurance company just rescinded her plan.  She’s too weak to work now.  She asks “Senator Shelby, what am I going to do?”

The simple fact of the matter is that the individuals who lack insurance – and there are millions of them – are going to be the ones who are most likely to have some heartbreaking story. Insurance is all about making money, after all, and you don’t make money by insuring people who need insurance.

Politics, on the other hand, is all about narrative. Statistics are great and they certainly don’t hurt to have on your side, but when we’re talking about what works and doesn’t work in a national political debate it’s the teary eyed 5-year-old girl with cancer and no health insurance that wins the argument, not some stuffy explanation of liberal macroeconomic theory as it applies to the healthcare market.

In other words, it is all about the stories you can tell and that is why the GOP is not holding town halls. The Republicans have facts and figures and data but nothing human – no way to engage the suffering and pain felt by those millions who have been betrayed by the current system. That is why they’re going to stay out of the areas where they’d be forced to confront the counter-narrative. It really is just that simple.

But while the Republicans are playing smart politics, the Democrats are acting like fools.  If serious healthcare reform is the issue the Democrats want to champion then the smart political strategy is to push the narrative.   Democrats should be pounding home the injustice of existing system relentlessly.  Rather than airing ads in the mold of the Harry and Louise campaign that sank the Clinton healthcare initiative, Democrats should be blanking the airwaves in stories like that of Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17 year old cancer patient who died with CIGNA healthcare denied her the liver transplant that could have saved her life.

If the Democratic leadership is serious about a healthcare reform bill then the winning strategy is brutally simple: shame the GOP into submission.  Nail the obstructionists to the wall with each and every preventable death, squandered life’s savings, and needless ordeal caused by the for-profit insurance system.  Demand, in essence, that those who seek to maintain the status quo embrace its consequences as an acceptable cost.

Politics is about narrative and it is high time the Democrats started playing to win.