If you think the people and the companies selling you toothpaste, light beer or imported cars are the only ones using slogans, tag lines or catch phrases to burn their brand into your mind and direct your behavior – you haven’t been paying attention to the rising cacophony in the debate over health care reform. The players in this game have used slogans and quick, easily understood phrases to great effect in bringing people to their way of thinking.
I’m not talking about the actual ads you’ve seen from the insurance lobby, the medical lobby, the senior citizens lobby, the trial lawyers lobby and just about any other lobby with a stake in the outcome. That’s advertising, pure and simple. It has polish (well, some of it does) and it comes from a clearly defined point of view. It isn’t fooling any of us.
I’m talking about the true soldiers in this battle – the politicians themselves and, to a lesser extent, the pundits and commentators. Health care reform is an incredibly important issue that also happens to be incredibly complex. So, the big guns on both sides of the issue recognized very early in the game the importance of simplification. The result has been the creation of a sort of rhetorical shorthand wherein both proponents and detractors leave intelligent discussion behind in favor of blatant sloganeering.
Opponents of the Administration’s proposals tell us to fear the specter of “socialized medicine.” That, with the wrong legislation, we will all soon be surrendering to “government control” of our health and health care decisions. We are bombarded with images of “sex clinics” and “death panels” who will send bureaucrats in under cover of darkness to “unplug grandma.”
And don’t think the simplistic slogans are the sole province of conservative Republicans. Democrats make repeated references to wealthier Americans’ “Cadillac plans” and miss almost no opportunity to label the opposition “elitists,” “obstructionists” or the ever-popular “Party of No.”
Call me crazy, but I think that we, the American public, for the most part, can sort out the facts and come to some pretty decent conclusions on our own. Yes, the issue is complicated. But there are legitimate arguments on both sides of virtually every aspect of the debate. Sadly, most of us aren’t hearing them. Instead, we get message points, slogans, stereotypes and broad generalizations. I suspect because the people who are throwing those words at us don’t think we’re smart enough to handle anything more complex. Or maybe they fear that if we’re not fed a daily dose of negative labeling, we’ll actually see that the other side has a point – or at least an argument that should be considered.
Don’t get me wrong. We do this mass communications thing for a living. Simple, direct, easily understood messages are the most potent weapon in our arsenal. Our clients depend on us to develop the right slogans, tag lines and phrases to position their brands. It’s what we do, and I make no apologies for it. But our most effective messages are also rooted in two things – truth and relevance, flavored with a heavy respect for the intelligence of our audience.
If only the people who will ultimately determine the future of health care for generations of Americans would consider approaching their communications in the same way. We could take it. We’d understand it. And I believe we’d all be better off for it.
