Healthcare Reform Talking Points

If your congress critter responds to your orders to vote in favor of healthcare reform by whining about re-election, remind it of the health care re-election talking points issued by the White House:

A new set of White House talking points offers a preview of how the Democrats will frame health care reform once President Obama signs the legislation into law.

Crafted by David Axelrod and already popping up in Obama's stump speech, the talking points are focused on two key themes - what will health care reform do for the average person, and a suggestion that Republicans are defending big insurance.

The 14-page PowerPoint presentation sent to House Democrats and obtained by TPMDC advises rank-and-file members to keep it simple and focus on the 85 percent of people with health insurance.

The talking points were delivered at a recent caucus meeting for House Democrats by Axelrod's senior adviser David Simas. Capitol Hill aides say members will try out the messaging during the next break and if they work, expect to hear them a lot in the fall.

Some of them, unfortunately, are pretty fucking stupid in electoral terms, like bragging about including repug ideas, and repeating talking points that have failed repeatedly over the last year. Like this one:

The White House encourages Democrats to direct their press releases and events back home to the 85 percent of Americans who have health insurance. For example: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."

The recent Democratic Party plan to "win the message war and avoid a repeat of the August town halls" wasn't much better, but at least it acknowledged the existence of a message war that the repugs are still winning in a walk.

This, however, is good:

Also key to winning over the American people - stressing the benefits of the legislation that would kick in this year.

They are:

Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;

Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;

Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;

Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;

Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;

Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs;

Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;

Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26;

Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;

Relief on the Donut Hole.

SNIP

Read the talking points in full here.

Click here to email, call or write your member of Congress.

Update - We hear from Josh Marshall that the repugs' lie about the House "not voting" by using "deem and pass" may be getting traction. Here is the truth to refute those lies.

This isn't complicated. It's consolidating two votes into one.