GOP Letter To Obama Written By Frank Luntz, Insurance Giants

Last week, President Obama wrote a letter to Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Max Baucus (D-MT) describing his vision for health care reform. "I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans," Obama wrote.

Unhappy with Obama's stance, a group of Senate Republicans responded by sending the president a letter of their own. Nine of the ten Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee signed the letter -- Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) was the lone dissenter -- which detailed their opposition to a public plan.  Predictably, the letter's authors failed to offer any meaningful policy ideas, instead relying on empty rhetoric and misinformation to make their case. Regarding the consequences of a public option, they wrote:

The end result would be a federal government takeover of our healthcare system, taking the decisions out of the hands of doctors and patients and placing them in the hands of a Washington bureaucracy.

Of course, that sentence is straight out of GOP wordsmith Frank Luntz's playbook for obstructing health care reform.  Specifically, the Senators are following Rule #4 and Rule #7 of Luntz's "The 10 Rules For Stopping The 'Washington Takeover' Of Health Care."

Rule #4:

The arguments against the Democrats' healthcare plan must center around "politicians," "bureaucrats," and "Washington" ... not the free market, tax incentives, or competition. Stop talking economic theory and start personalizing the impact of a government takeover of healthcare. They don't want to hear that you're opposed to government healthcare because it's too expensive (any help from the government to lower costs will be embraced) or because it's anti-competitive (they don't know about or care about current limits to competition). But they are deathly afraid that a government takeover will lower their quality of care - so they are extremely receptive to the anti-Washington approach. It's not an economic issue. It's a bureaucratic issue.

Rule #7:

The idea that a "committee of Washington bureaucrats" will establish the standard of care for all Americans and decide who gets what treatment based on how much it costs is anathema to Americans. Your approach? Call for the "protection of the personalized doctor-patient relationship." It allows you to fight to protect and improve something good rather than only fighting to prevent something bad.

Unfortunately, the letter didn't adhere to Rule #10, which states, "It's not enough to just say what you're against.  You have to tell them what you're for."

What's more, the Senators cite "a recent Milliman study" as evidence of the cost burden of a public option. They make no mention, however, of the fact that the study was commissioned by America's Health Insurance Providers (AHIP), the American Hospital Association (AHA), and Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) -- all major players who stand to benefit from blocking a public option.

The nine Senators who signed the letter have accepted $17.7 million in donations from health care interests, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, so it's no surprise that they're doing the insurance industry's bidding.