Here is a description of Frank Luntz, provided by Wikipedia.
Frank Ian Luntz (born February 23, 1962) is an American political and communications consultant, pollster, and pundit, best known for developing talking points and other messaging for Republican causes. … He advocated use of vocabulary crafted to produce a desired effect; including use of the term death tax instead of estate tax, and climate change instead of global warming.
Luntz has frequently contributed to Fox News as a commentator and analyst, as well as running focus groups during and after presidential debates on CBSN. Luntz describes his specialty as "testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate." He is also an author of business books dealing with communication strategies and public opinion.
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The Republican Party immediately went on the attack to defeat the intention of the newly elected Obama administration to make significant changes in the existing system that dictated how Americans paid their medical care expenses. Luntz, of course, sided with the large insurance companies, which were profiting handsomely from the existing system. I wrote this letter to express my opposition.
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To the rescue of the party of torture, tax cuts for the rich, and sociopathic capitalism rides pollster/wordsmith/propagandist Frank Luntz, the creator of such GOP word-palliatives as “clear skies,” “ownership society,” “climate change,” and “energy exploration.” Luntz has sent a 28-page memo to Republican politicos advising them how to turn public opinion against a Democratic Party-backed public, Medicare-type health care plan, the antithesis of what the GOP strives to protect: coverage-denying, premium-gouging, private, for-profit health coverage.
“Acknowledge the ‘crisis,’” Luntz states. Tell the public what it wants to hear: “Healthcare quality = ‘getting the health care treatment you need, when you need it.’” Be sure to “individualize. Personalize. Humanize.” Emphasize the word ‘more,’ as in “more access to more treatments and more doctors.” Above all, “call for the ‘protection of the personalized doctor-patient relationship.’”
“Arguments against the Democratic plan must center around ‘politicians,’ ‘bureaucrats,’ and ‘Washington.’” Note, “healthcare horror stories from Canada & Co. do resonate.” Reference that with “the phrase ‘government takeover,’” link “the importance of timeliness,” and raise “the specter of ‘denial.’” And “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse are your best targets for how to bring down costs.”
Odious barnsniffle! But no matter. Luntz believes that “persuadables” and “wayward Republicans and conservatives” are reachable.
GOP members of Congress have started already.
“The American people want everything but a Washington take-over.” – Rep. Michael Burgess, TX.
“We got to go back to centering our focus on patient-doctor relationships.” – Rep. Eric Cantor, VA
“The American people are worried that we’re going to place government, or should I say bureaucrats, between themselves and their doctors.” – Sen. Orrin Hatch, UT.
Economist Dean Baker makes the argument simple. “If the government can provide health care better and cheaper, then why do we need private insurers?” Over 60 percent of Americans are saying, “We shouldn’t.”
Printed May 20, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
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A new Florence Republican letter writer – he would become a regular contributor, his thinking always muddled, in my opinion – referenced my letter.
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Mr. Titus in his recent letter to the editor (“Health Care Crisis,” May 20) could not have said it more clearly or simpler in his reference to the debate on health care. “It’s all politics …” We do not have a health crisis here in the United States of America. Instead we have a political agenda of big government with less and less individual responsibility.
Look at all the “improvements” the government has given us in education, transportation, energy, agriculture and housing, just to name a few. The facts are clear, the federal government has never been able to run a viable business or enterprise other than the military in our many years of existence.
We are a “country of cowards” (as stated by our Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr.) especially when it comes to our selfishness to provide for ourselves. Many well-informed individuals like Mr. Titus believe the federal government is the only answer. Sure, there are many who cannot afford health insurance, but there are even more of us who can, but have better things to do with our money. So thinking that having the government provide health insurance is the one thing that will end this so-called “health crisis” is just ludicrous and without merit.
If only we could believe, but that’s very hard to do when bills are being passed by our representatives and signed by our president without first reading them or understanding what is being made into law, because of the lengthy number of pages. We built the complex interstate highway system in the 1950s by a bill that was only 29 pages only.
Jimmie L. Moe
Printed May 30, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
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I answered back.
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I have two quotations to offer in response to comments made by two May 30 letter writers.
Jimmie L. Moe wrote, “We have a political agenda of big government with less and less individual responsibility” and, regarding paying into a government-run health care system, we “have better things to do with our money.”
Response – Although I have no reason to believe that the following applies to Mr. Moe individually, I do believe that people that hold fast to the “boot-strap” philosophy, abhor taxes, and embrace corporatism qualify [for criticism]. This is addressed to them. “There are people who go after your humanity, Sister, who tell you that the light in your heart is a weakness. Don’t believe it. It’s an old tactic of cruel people to kill kindness in the name of virtue.” – Father Flynn in the movie Doubt.
Addressing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, David M. Lynch wrote, “I am outraged at your recent comments regarding the CIA and past briefings … You should resign if you refuse to admit to your lies.”
Response – “It is a nonsensical distraction to place her [Pelosi’s] failure to speak out courageously as a critic of the Bush policies on the same level as those who engineered one of the most shameful debacles in US history.” – Robert Scheer
Printed June 6, 2009, in the Siuslaw News
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The administration had so many Democratic senators opposed to anything that approached the legislation of a universal single payer medical care system. They would not even sign on to establishing in individual states a single payer plan option to compete with private insurance company plans. Turncoat Joe Lieberman, running mate with Al Gore in the 2000 election, especially incurred my wrath. Over the Bush years (2001-2008), now an Independent, Lieberman was a bosom pal of John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Mitch McConnell had pledged that he would make Barrack Obama a one-term President. As long as the Democrats controlled the Senate (They did the first two years), using the filibuster rule, he would force the Dems to scratch and scrape to try to garner 60 votes to pass what they wanted.
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I had this to say about the obstructionist, so-called Senate Democrats.
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What national referendum made Democratic Party Senators Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Bill Nelson, and Arlen Specter the policy-deciders of this country?
Rejecting nearly 30 years of disastrous conservative governance, fed-up Americans voted last November for major, progressive change. Yet this cabal has erected a stone wall to defeat single-payer health care, clean energy mandates, organized labor revitalization, just tax policy revision, and fair home mortgage renegotiation.
Addressing health care reform, Senator Landrieu has stated, “I am not open to a public option. However, I will remain open to a compromise, a full compromise.”
A legitimate, government-operated, single-payer option -- like that included in Senator Edward Kennedy’s bill-in-the-making – placed for consideration beside Big Insurance’s profit-making, promised faux-compromises is the “full compromise.” Why? Economist Dean Baker: “If the government can provide health care better and cheaper, then why do we need private insurers?”
So Big Insurance CEOs can make 7 and 8 figure incomes?
Flood the offices of Peter DeFazio, Ron Wyden, and Jeff Merkley with hand-delivered letters, send emails, make phone calls. Remind them precisely what is at stake.
Printed June 12, 2009, in The World
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I had written a similar letter to the Register-Guard. The editor made some changes that I did not like. A fellow Florence Area Democratic Club member wrote the following to the Eugene paper.
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Harold Titus (letters, June 11) asks why a group of Democratic Senators – Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Bill Nelson and Arlan Specker – are voting against the single-payer health care reform bill.
I can supply a good part of the answer. They have all received massive donations from pharmaceutical companies and health organizations. Senator Baucus alone received over $2.5 million. They are bowing to their money masters. What do they care about public need or public opinion?
Barbara Prisbe-Sutton, Florence
Printed June 19, 2009, in the Register-Guard
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The club, and I, definitely favored a government run single payer system and were not happy about Democratic Congressmen and Senators dragging their feet. I hand-delivered copies of the following letter to the Eugene offices of Representative Peter DeFazio and Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley.
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Florence Area Democratic Club
PO Box 635
Florence, OR 97439
June 15, 2009
The Florence Area Democratic Club voted unanimously June 6 that representatives of the organization should personally deliver a letter to your Eugene office to emphasize our desire that you support a strong single payer, not-for-profit, universal health care plan.
We reject the statement made by anti-single payer Democratic Party office holders that most Americans are satisfied with their health care coverage. Many of us, the undersigned, have Medicare and supplemental private insurance to cover our needs, but at a considerable cost. Like so many Americans, some of us have only Medicare. Some seniors do not receive Medicare Part A coverage free; they must pay a high premium to obtain it. And this says nothing about the millions of Americans under the age of 65 that are underinsured or have no health coverage at all.
Our country is resilient; it has overcome turbulent crises; it is certainly capable of surviving a medical coverage “upheaval,” especially because the desired outcome is so necessary and just.
We reject the assumption that private insurance companies can be sufficiently regulated and reformed to drive down costs.
Private insurers complain that single payer health care would destroy their ability to make profits. When did making money by exploiting the status of a person’s health become an acceptable, moral practice?
We recognize that the “trigger” idea championed by Senator Snowe is a cynical ploy to secure and maintain the pernicious status-quo. For the same reason, we reject the cooperative approach proposed by Senator Conrad. Also, his proposal does not incorporate the economies of scale that will drive down costs. We are additionally aware that the Puget Sound model he promotes is not as well accepted by its participants as he says it is.
Two years ago one of our club members wrote, “At its most basic level the Democratic Party stands for two things: the goal of securing the well-being, the rights, and the access to equal opportunity of every citizen and the belief that government has a responsibility to foster it.” A vote against single payer -- however Congress tries to paint It -- is a vote for corporate governance. At its core, our health care debate is about human rights, about our country's founding principles, about whom government serves. Because single payer has been excluded in policy hearings and because too many Democratic members of Congress have said they will not support It, disillusioned Democrats across the country are reconsidering whom they wish to have as their senators and representatives in Washington.
We urge you to strongly endorse affordable, single payer, not-for-profit, universal health care.
Sincerely,
Harold Titus
Electra Adams
Stephanie Chestler
Jerry Christean
Bill Collins
Emily Cutting
Bill Hager
Lucille Herr
Wende Jarman
Michele Jean
Garry Kelly
Jane Meyer
George Myers
Jerry Nordin
Leah Patten
Nancy Rickard
Hugh Schneider
Janet Titus
Jenny Velinty
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