The Politicians Should Hire a Healthcare PR Agency
Every day now, ubiquitous across all types of media, both Democrats and Republicans are in full-throated discourse (a polite term) debating the future of America’s health care system. The discussion is decidedly unpolite, loud, passionate and to say the least, confusing. The Democrats, ardent supporters of major overhauls to our current healthcare system, have (to me anyway) yet to paint a cogent and articulate rationale for many of their proposals, and the Republicans, have fallen to pathetic imagery suggesting that our country’s senior citizens would be systematically denied life-saving care under measures advocated by the Democrats. How sad. But should we really be surprised?
Despite the assistance of world-class political consultants, communications pros, and talking head spinmeisters who are household names, both sides are grasping at straws in attempting to craft and then communicate simple, easy-to-understand messages that make real sense and resonate across political divides to the American people. I have to admit, that I am confused, and I deal in these issues almost every day. But again should this surprise us?
Think about it. Most of the hot button political issues of our time can be easily etched in the sharp contrasts of black and white. Go to war or not? Right to life or pro-choice? Gun control or not? Higher taxes or lower taxes? Soft on Crime? Hard on crime. The discussions surrounding these issues are easily framed and communicated. Why? Because they are simple. They are visceral in nature and professional political communicators have been easily able to manipulate the American public for decades now in driving home both their own positions and depositioning the competition with language and images that appeal to the lowest common denominator. Black and white stuff.
So, why are they having such a hard time with the healthcare discussion? Because the infrastructure, issues and care and cost basis of our healthcare system is, if nothing else, NOT simple. In fact, they are exceedingly complex. And almost incomprehensible to the average American. HMOs, PPOs, payors, caregivers, deductables, Medicaid, pre-existing conditions, wide variances in insurance coverage across economic and geographic stratas, medicare, co-pays, generics and on and on it goes. Whatever happened to the days when your own doctor came to your home with his little black bag? And then when you overlay the thicket of our current misunderstood system with new ideas and thinking, why it’s almost impossible to fully understand. It is exactly the complexity of all of this that has even the most experienced and savvy of the political PR pros scratching their heads---they’re not used to or capable of real substantive debate and discussion on complex issues. Give them the sizzle over the meat any day. You want to talk about capital punishment? Bring it on. Minimum wage? No problem. But the issues surrounding our healthcare system are deep and not easily simplified into sound bites.
So here is my suggestion. Democrats and Republicans alike should carefully consider retaining professional healthcare communicators in lieu of the political Lords of spin who are so obviously failing at convincing Americans on the merits of virtually anything at this point. Why? There are many fine healthcare and medical PR agencies across the country that are extremely adept at taking complex and sophisticated healthcare issues and translating them into simple, easy to understand messaging. These communications professionals have experience in representing virtually all of the players in the healthcare arena. Medical device companies with sophisticated technologies, consumer advocacy groups, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, physician groups, hospitals, research organizations and more. They are familiar with working in the regulated environment of our healthcare system. They are smart enough to realize that in America’s current healthcare system or even in a utopian one of the future, nothing is black and white. That there are nuances and shades of gray in most everything. Healthcare PR professionals would also not come at the communications challenge from a political perspective, but rather from an overall systemic viewpoint, in which the biggest challenge is education. And lastly, medical and healthcare pros realize that the biggest ally they could have in promoting a position is a fully informed and educated American public, not one kept in the dark by innuendo, negative images, and distortion of the facts.
Posted by Lloyd Benson on September 14, 2009 at 11:56 AM
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