In hind site, rolling out the site to a small group first for enrollment would have been brilliant. However on none of the projects have I worked on has this been done. The requirements are gathered, the configuration is completed. The database is tested in units and for integration points. You never really get it fully tested until you flip the switch.
In every implementation I have worked, it takes at least of month to get the bulk of the issues resolved. The first week is crazy. People hate it. Why did we have to do this? Then once all the issues start getting resolved and they spend time working with it, it becomes much easier. It is not the roadblock to productivity they experienced during the first few weeks but the medium used for daily activity.
The kinks will get worked out in the website and the enrollment process. Then the biggest nightmare begins for Republicans begins when the public discovers that they have better and affordable health care.
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Polifact.com's "Lie of the Year for 2010: 'A government takeover of health care'", article by Bill Adair and Angie Drobnic Holan reveals how Frank Luntz, consultant to leaders of the GOP sold them first on the Big Lie. It is the artistry of political consultants to swizzle and spin the truth into either a golden goose or an ugly monster depending on the need of their clients. In this case, the client was the GOP leadership and they needed a way to turn the concept of overhauling the abuses and inefficiency of the health insurance industry into an ugly monster. Short and sweet, Frank Luntz came up with a good sound bite: "Government Takeover." Those two simple words are an arrow in the heart of the organization that is fueled by the ideology of "Less Government is Good Government."
You don't want too many words to get in the way of your message. It can't be too heady, don't confuse your audience with too many facts. Go for the heart of their rally cry. If the rally cry is "Less Government" then the battle cry is "Government Takeover."
If the same consultant had worked for Democratic leadership, the rally cry of "Equal Rights" would be paired with the battle cry of "Basic Health Care for All" and simplified this becomes "Health Care Reform" since less is more, more or less at least when it comes to sound bites. Unfortunately Health Care Reform has no umph. It doesn't make a good battle cry. Another good way to spin for progressives is to make the issue a war, such as a "War on Hunger" or a "War on Illiteracy." The problem with the health care reform act was that Democrats have not made it an official war. I have to admit it's not easy to do. War on the Insanely Wealthy who Control who gets Health Care Based on their Own Corporate Profit Margins and the Demands of their Shareholders is not a politically sound tactic since insurance companies contribute big dollars to political campaigns. And besides, it is just way too long.
The Republicans have been spinning since 2007 on the name of the then candidate Obama. It was made vogue by pundits on right-leaning media outlets to call him Barack HUSSEIN Obama while calling into question the legitimacy of his citizenship. With a name as foreign as that, he couldn't be a true citizen even if his mother was from Kansas, the heartland of America. That was a good spin to make him the ugly monster by way of connecting him to the abusiveness and foreignness of dictator Saddam Hussein.
This "big lie" took on the short impact version of simply Obama being the big ugly after Barack HUSSEIN Obama was said enough times. So now, in 2010 Obama can effectively be morphed into ObamaCare with a double entendre effect of Medicare as well as dictatorship. This is a brilliant spin and catchy too. ObamaCare should sound positive but after enough spinning it is equivalent to "Government Takeover" and in short, Dictatorship.
The next step after ObamaCare is solders in black coming to confiscate your guns which is shortly followed by putting all citizens in prison camps. Which in full circle is the end of all government since there is no one left to pay taxes which would fund the prison camps, but no one in that circle of fear takes this illogical thought to it's logical conclusion.
The Republicans simply understand the public psyche and attention span. Republicans cut to the chase and make it butt-ugly simple. And they build well on a theme. To go with Government Takeover, GOP leaders were first to use the term Death Panels. But they didn't apply it to the billion-dollar insurance industry, the ones actually running today's death panels, they applied it to their ever-looming big bad boogy monster - BIG GOVERNMENT. Who can bear the thought of Granny losing out to a Death Panel. That conjures up visions of Darth Vader slicing through Grandma with a light saber.
In fact, insurance companies have been making life and death decisions for decades with actuary tables and by using the measure of preexisting conditions and lifetime limits of coverage and phrases like 'out of network' or 'not in plan.' But no compelling case has been made for the truth. Maybe it isn't politically correct to point the finger at an industry which pours millions into campaign donations and lobbying? Or maybe liberal intellectuals find it hard to simplify this complex issue. Maybe Democrats lack self-confidence. They feel it necessary to fully explain this issue to the public so they understand the dire situation of US health care; but it is just too many real facts to capture the fervor of the public. Maybe the public needs more of a burly football coach rallying the team when they are down at the half.
The bottom line is that the Democrats trust way too much in the capacity of the general public to absorb lengthy and complex factual evidence in support of the worthy cause of overhauling a multibillion dollar insurance industry. The case can be made FOR the bill in sound bites, just as the case AGAINST it has been.
Let me provide a quick example:
- Health Insurance companies are the Warlords of health care.
- Insurance companies measure the value of our lives against their Wall Street performance.
- Health insurance profits come first over lives.
- Who runs the Death Panels? Billion-dollar Insurance companies. A corporate fat-cat decides who gets coverage and what will be covered.
- The health care insurance industry is out of whack. It's too big. It's too profit oriented. It only looks at the numbers. YOU are not a number. YOUR BABY is not a number. YOUR grandma is NOT a number.
And there you have it, the progression of unraveling a piece of legislation that would not only reform the health insurance industry into a more competitive business model responsive to the real needs of it's customer base but also an incentive plan to reward hospitals and health care providers for walking into the 21st century of technology by use of the electronic medical record.
Next time you visit a loved one in the hospital, take note of whether a care provider writes down your loved ones vital signs on his or her hand or scrubs rather than using technology. Or the next time you visit your doctor, look behind the receptionist at that big wall of paper charts. Count the number of times you repeat your information when you go for an outpatient visit. Ask yourself is this efficient or safe? And then go home and play your 3D, motion-activated Nintendo in HD and be in awe of technology in action.
Bill Moyers makes an appeal to the President to refrain from caving on the Public Option. Compromise ended in it being removed from the bill anyway.
Bill Moyers makes an appeal to the President to refrain from caving on the Public Option. Compromise ended in it being removed from the bill anyway.
Our current health care system is overly dependent on employer provided plans. What happens if your employer goes under or you lose your job? You will discover the real-time death panels already fully operating in this country as is told here:
