Messaging Guide

Health care

Begin in agreement, for example: For decades, our healthcare system has been overpriced and unfair.
Use values, for example: Health, health security, safety, protection, quality of life.
Show how they benefit, for example: When uninsured people get routine health care at hospital emergency rooms, that high cost is added onto our insurance premiums. So, getting them covered saves money for all of us.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare, has been a huge success. Persuadable voters clearly do not want a change in policy where they would lose their health insurance coverage or any coverage guarantee, pay more in premiums or deductibles, or see a cut in government funding for their healthcare programs.

The key to defending existing healthcare programs is to focus on what Americans will or may lose.

Say… For decades, our healthcare system has been overpriced and unfair. Our goal must be to get you—and everyone else—the health care you need, when you need it, at a price you can afford. The [MAGA proposal] would hand our healthcare system back to the big insurance companies, allowing them to deny coverage for essential medical care, jack up premiums for women and older Americans, and make insurance completely unaffordable for anyone with a wide range of preexisting conditions. For the security and health of your family and mine, we cannot allow it.

Personalize the debate. Say that millions will lose health insurance, but don’t reference Medicaid. Focus on aspects of any right-wing policy that would directly or indirectly affect families that get health insurance through an employer. Emphasize over and over that each and every one of their families will likely be harmed if such a proposal is enacted.

When the conversation turns to the uninsured, avoid language about poverty because it evokes negative ideas about welfare. Use the terms hardworking, families, children, and people with disabilities because these suggest the recipients need and deserve basic medical coverage. And as we have explained elsewhere, it’s more effective to say don’t deny them health security instead of give them health security.

Use similar tactics for proactive progressive legislation designed to strengthen the healthcare system. For example:

Say… For decades, our healthcare system has been overpriced and unfair. Our goal must be to get you—and everyone else—the health care you need, when you need it, at a price you can afford. One crucial step is to minimize uncompensated care. That’s when uninsured people get healthcare in the most expensive way, at hospital emergency rooms, and then that cost is added onto our insurance premiums. Getting them covered saves you money.

Or when progressives address prescription drugs, for example:

Say… Prescription drug prices are skyrocketing. To protect our health, all of our families need access to medicines that are affordable. No one should ever have to choose between buying medicine or paying their rent. A proposal in our state legislature would [insert]…. The bill helps all of us, and for someone you know, it may be a matter of life and death.

You are welcome to cite facts and figures, and there are a lot of them on this topic. But average Americans are already convinced of the need, you just have to connect their preexisting beliefs about health care and prescription drug prices to specific legislation that requires their support.