Just Frame It: Health care debate as much about words as it is how to pay for full coverage

by Michael Hays [courtesy of Blog for America]

Most Americans know our health care system is broken.

The looming fight in the presidential races – and eventually within Congress – is destined to come down to two things: how to pay for a universal, single-payer system, AND, how to defend the merits of such a policy against right wing smear jobs/fear campaigns.

Remember “Hillary Care?” Does the term “socialized medicine” make your ears red and blood pressure rise?

In “Don’t Think of an Elephant!” George Lakoff spells out the conservative mind-set on health care. “It is the responsibility of parents to take care of their children. To the extent that they cannot, they are not living up to their individual responsibility. No one has the responsibility of doing other people’s jobs for them. Thus prenatal care, post-natal care, health care for children, and care for the aged and infirm are matters of individual responsibility. They (health care matters) are not the responsibility of taxpayers.”

Could this be what President Bush really wanted to say to reporters when he recently threatened to veto the expansion of state-funded health insurance for children(S-CHIP)?

The real key to the universal health care debate is convincing undecided Americans that coverage is a right, not a privilege. Aetna thinks it is a privilege. Your insurance underwriter thinks it is a privilege. The conservative Cato Institute, funded by wealthy interests, thinks it is a privilege. Working class Americans do not, especially the 45 million people who don’t have insurance.

Put simply, some services should not be for profit. Public works, the U.S. Post Office, air and