The Luntz Memo: Future Fear vs. Present Pain

Although a lively debate is now taking place as to whether the Luntz memo represents a realistic approach to defeating Obama’s as-yet unwritten health care reform or merely self-aggrandizement for Luntz, the debate misses the point.  Sure, the Borg-effect is going strong in which Republican members of Congress are already being assimilated into Luntz’s language.  But the real issue isn't how relevant Luntz's scare tactics are or are not for politicians.  The real issue is how relevant they are to you.

A college professor of mine once opined that while you might effectively trick or distract any other sense, the brain never loses track of touch – especially if it’s pain.  In words I still remember, he said, “You can easily lose track of where things are in your vision, or hear sounds coming from the wrong side, sure.  But if you have a weasel attached to your arm and then step onto a nail, your brain doesn’t say, ‘Now where is that weasel?’”  Oppositional political messaging – especially when, as with the GOP and health care, you can’t offer an alternative solution – is all about distraction, and the Luntz memo is no exception.  But you’d have to be from a different planet in order for some of these distractions to work with the exact situation that so many Americans face today.  The pain is just too real, and just too widespread.

Yes, some people have an inherent distrust of the government’s potential to interfere with their lives, but that’s not really the point today.  Nor is whatever justification is used to drop the word “rationing” as a future threat.  People have far less trust in and very present-tense anger at the insurance companies who are already interfering with their lives, and they’ve become all too familiar with what real rationing is.  As a powerful letter to the editor in today’s NY Times reads, “As any doctor will tell you, when a private health insurance plan delays or denies a physician-recommended service, it is deciding who gets care and what kind of care people get. That is rationing.” Thanks to years of HMOs and private insurance, we know all too well what denial is.  We have it now.

Yes, Luntz is able to describe a nightmare scenario of making the crisis personal, about the possibility that your own children could be denied the care they need under some hazy future government bureaucracy.  But the fear of losing your health coverage is exactly the same fear, and it’s acute in this economic climate.  People are losing their coverage with their jobs now.  More and more companies are dropping benefits.  Those that continue offering benefits may well be cutting back or asking employees to pay more of the share.  Forget fear about a theoretical future we can only sort of understand – that’s immediate fear.  Telling us we should be much more afraid about something else is a poor substitute when your only choice is to take or leave what your employer gives you, or take your chances on the expensive individual market.  Thanks to years of skyrocketing costs, individuals, families and business owners have never paid more for premiums, never paid more for prescription drugs, never paid more for co-pays and never known so many people (possibly including ourselves) who are on the cusp of being uninsured or underinsured because of the recession.  Too many people know exactly what it is to not be able to give their children the care they need when they need it.  It’s called “not being able to pay for it.”

It’s almost like the Luntz memo is describing another world, one where our broken health care system is a source of annoyance rather than pain.  As the Kaiser Family Foundation and Commonwealth Fund (via Jon Cohn) show, that’s just not the case. 68% have had trouble paying for medical bills in the past 12 months.  54% of chronically ill patients had trouble getting access to care this year because of cost. More from KFF’s poll:  53% found themselves using home remedies, cutting pills in half, or skipping or postponing care because they just couldn’t afford what they need.  That’s the world we live in today.

The Luntz memo itself gets it:  “Fully 70% of Americans consider our healthcare system to be either in a state of crisis or seriously troubled and requires significant reform.”  In answer to this, though, neither he nor all those GOP-Borg adopting his language offer a solution.  They just offer more things to be afraid of.  And that’s where I think, for all the poll-tested language, their argument jumps off the rails.  Future fear just can’t trump present pain.

(Photo credit:  allistairmcmillan on Flickr.)