Maybe it should be called the "medicare option" instead of the "public option"

[DanTex]

That way it could appeal to the (apparently sizeable) fraction of the population which hates government health care programs but likes medicare.

At the very least, we might be able to get repub spinsters to admit to their constituencies that their beloved medicare is run by the government. As in:

R: This is a government takeover.
D: Well, no, it's just giving everyone a chance to participate in the highly popular and effective medicare program.
R: But, but ... medicare is a government program!
D: Holy sh*t, it worked!! I got a republican to tell the truth!!
R: There were no WMDs in Iraq!!! CO2 causes global warming!!! Torture is a war crime!!! The earth is more than 10,000 years old!!!!!

Well, maybe not that last part...

Joking aside, the fact that so many people (39% it seems) don't understand that medicare is run by the government is a testament to the lousy job that the left has done in the propaganda war. If we assume the country is split 50-50 on healthcare reform, that would mean that almost 80% of the anti-reform crowd don't understand that medicare is a government program. So, it seems like this should really be the #1 priority in terms of communications for the white house on health care. I mean, if you don't get that medicare is a single payer, what hope do you have of understanding any of the more subtle issues involved.

What's frustrating is that back when Ronald Reagan was playing the "Sarah Palin" role in the GOP, the right made a bunch of similarly insane apocalyptic predictions about what would happen if medicare passed. Of course, none of that stuff happened, but at least back then it was maybe plausible to talk about rationing and socialism and France because a single payer system was actually a new thing in the US.

By now, though, we've had a single payer program for 40+ years. And, incidentally, that single payer plan covers people aged 65 and up, so if the government was gonna pull the plug on grandma, it would already have been pulled. We don't need to fight the same propaganda war as LBJ did -- it should be easier this time. If a "public option" is scary sounding, just use the word "medicare" instead. Let's see the right try to equate medicare with death panels and rationing and Hitler (actually that already happened on Meet the Press when Rachel Maddow got Dick Armey to literally call medicare "tyranny").

[MannyGoldstein]

1. I Heartily Agree

Medicare is a known quantity. These new tortuous proposed schemes are unknown, and thus more scary.

[Cetacea]

2. I agree. It's not to late to address it as such. n/t

[cliffordu]

3. That would flummox the Repubs...the party that wants to kill Medicare.

[whathehell]

4. Great idea. n/t

[aquart]

5. First rule: control the names.

"Public" scares people. It sounds like you could get a disease if you touch it, like "public urinal."

[Metta]

6. That reflects a lot of good possibilities. Kudos.

I hope it gets put into common usage. :toast: