The President on Health Care
An Argument By the Book
2009-09-10

If those students from earlier in the week were still listening when the President gave his address to Congress on health care, I hope they were paying close attention. Boys and girls, your President just used every trick in the book to make an argument. Whether it accomplishes his goal remains to be seen, but if you ever wondered how best to lay out a case in your favor, this was a lesson for the ages.

Lesson #1: Describe the Problem

In any good argument you have to set the stage. 14,000 people a day lose health care.

Lesson #2: Give a real-life example of the impact of the problem that resonates with everyone

Obama throws in the tough tear jerkers to wake the crowd up, just in case they weren’t listening. The first appeal to emotion in a speech is even more important than the last

Lesson #3: Show the impact on your opponent

For the Republican crowd, the idea that people get sick and go broke is a story about someone else. Someone poor and underserving. So you do what the President did, you make sure to emphasize that it’s not just the people on welfare who medical coverage but someday Mummy , Daddy and your favorite Nanny as well. Bummer.

Lesson #4: Appeal to the things that matter most to your opponent – in this case money , taxes and the deficit 

Forget the sob stories and the awful realities of the lives of people without health care and scared to get sick. That doesn’t work with this crowd. Hit them where their heart is – in their wallets.

On the issue of saving money in this economy, no one disagrees.

Lesson #5: Lay out the extremes on each side as too radical:

Obama challenged the inflexible dogma of the hard left and the hard right, positioning his argument as something inherently fair, balanced and reflective of the best of both sides. A generally safe tactic creating a common enemy – though the fact that an opinion is extreme doesn’t make it wrong.

The “build on what works, fix what doesn’t” compromise theme gets universal agreement in any argument about any matter. Not passionate support, but something people can live with, in theory.

Lesson #6: Call everyone’s ideas valuable and viable

You’ve established the enemy, now you have to begin to build consensus. You need the tools to strengthen your own case. Self-endorsement always works by emphasizing mutual support and participation from all sides in developing your case. This lets your opponent know upfront that they will or should agree with at least a part of your argument. This breaks down the natural barriers to listening.

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Lesson #7: Lay Out the Plan Clearly and Concisely
There were few real details, but Obama laid out a good basic argument, breaking down the plan into one set of ideas for the haves and one for the have nots. To further simply, he broke the whole plan down in to ten key points:

1. Nothing in the plan requires a change from your current insurance
2.  It will be against the law to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions

3. It will be against the law to drop an insured person for illness

4. There will be no cap on coverage in a given year or a lifetime

5. There will be a cap to limit of out of pocket expenses.

   6. The plan requires routine coverage of preventive measures

7. A competitive “exchange” of insurers will allow  that puts people to use group coverage as leverage  to reduce premium costs
8. Individuals and small businesses in need will get tax credits
9. People will be required to carry health insurance , just as they do auto insurance.
10. Businesses must carry health care or else chip in to a general fund

Lesson #8 : De-legitimize the Opposition
 At this point in an argument, you’ve laid out the plan. Now you must immediately attack the naysayers before the opposition jumps in to counter. In other words counterattack before they attack.
Here, Obama took on the issue of death panels, funding for illegal immigrants and abortions and the nature of competition.

By going on the counterattack first, you set the tone and agenda for any attacks that will still come.

Lesson #9: Acknowledge Your Argument is a Challenge and Lay Out the Difficulty (Again with the Money)

Not everything in your argument will make immediate sense. You have to acknowledge that your ideas have merit but aren’t as easy as to achieve as they might seem. Once again, this carries weight because recognizes your opponent’s chief concern, again setting the tone before the opponent can attack.  The President uses this opportunity to put numbers behind the plan. Always with Republicans, the numbers must add up. Do they in this plan? Hard to judge.

Lesson #10. Close with an Appeal to the Emotion:

And how much more emotional can you get than the final wish of a dying man, Senator Ted Kennedy? We had all wondered how Kennedy’s lifelong goal of health care reform would be used to advantage after his death, and Kennedy himself answered that question by engineering calls to action in both the words at his funeral and at the President’s address. A fighter to the end and beyond the grave.

Using Kennedy’s words calling the health care debate no less than about “the character of our country”

The glow of tremendous speech and the idea of a national purpose lasted for the five minutes of handshakes and congratulations doled out to the President after the speech – and flicked away just that fast in comments made by the GOP directly after. Obama threw a great punch, but the fight is still raging.