POLITICO EDITORIAL: Mothers Are Real Health Care Experts
Washington,
Oct 23, 2009 -
As Printed in POLITICO, 10/23/09
A recent POLITICO story, “Analysts to Dems: Aim Pitch at Women” (Oct. 19), highlights the lackluster support Democrats’ health care reform measures are earning among women. The piece suggests that to boost support, reformers need to better target their message to inform women about the alleged benefits public option reform would bring. To the contrary, I believe the House and Senate leadership’s campaigns to educate women about their plans have left women well-informed but unimpressed.
Where Democratic proposals drive decision making through Washington, Republican health care proposals would put women firmly in the driver’s seat, ensuring that their market power forces reform. Sadly, we haven’t focused on making that case.
The women I talk to have experience with a health care market that can be inequitable, one in which women sometimes get the short end of the stick. Arguments that public option health care plans might solve all the inequities they and their friends, daughters and mothers have experienced are not new to them.
The Democrats’ message isn’t missing an audience; rather, the messengers aren’t listening to their mothers. A poll conducted late last month by marketing experts at WhyMomsRule.com finds that 67 percent of mothers are somewhat or highly satisfied with their own coverage. What is striking is that only 7 percent of mothers in this poll said they felt that Congress is “attuned to the situations of women” like them.
To be certain, women — or, rather, mothers — are distressed about rising costs and restricted access to health care. However, women are not self-interested actors worried solely about their own coverage. They are the primary health care decision makers for their families. They are not powerless consumers but market drivers who have genuine concerns about the entire system of care.
America’s mothers are on the health care front lines everyday. If they aren’t solidly behind any particular health care plan, it isn’t because they are unaware of the stakes or how they might benefit. After months of speeches, ads and town hall meetings, if only 7 percent of a key audience thinks policymakers are listening to their concerns, the problem is not with the message but with the policy.
The women I know treat their role as family decision maker as a sacred trust. Women who are often simultaneously caring for young children and elderly parents are simply unwilling to surrender that control to public option bureaucrats in Washington who they don’t believe are attuned to their needs. They are right to resist.
At the same time, moms are probably the most effective catalysts for conservative-minded reformers, and Republicans have offered health care solutions that would preserve a woman’s power in the marketplace and leave her as the primary decision maker. Where Democrats have missed on policy, Republicans truly have failed to effectively campaign for our own legislation. Far too often, we speak in vague generalities, rather than reiterating that we have real legislation that offers real solutions.
Even the Beltway-savvy readers of POLITICO are surprised when they hear references to H.R. 3400, the Republican Study Committee’s Empowering Patients First Act, which allows for the purchase of insurance across state lines. Fewer still have heard conservatives hailing H.R. 3218, Arizona Republican Rep. John Shadegg’s bill that empowers consumers by allowing them to pool together and offer competitive plans. H.R. 3713, the American Health Care Solutions Act of Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), employs free-market solutions to address the reform priorities President Barack Obama outlined in his joint address last month; it just doesn’t build a new federal bureaucracy to do it. These are only three of a series of comprehensive bills that conservative members have offered to directly address the problems in our health care system.
Young mothers and experienced grandmothers are demanding a health care system that is less complicated, less discriminatory, more accessible and more affordable. While the Democrats’ pitch leaves women unenthused, Republicans are inexplicably hesitant to highlight our real bills and real solutions. We have allowed ourselves to be labeled the party of “no” instead of the party of “know.”
Like many other vital decisions, the ultimate shape of health care reform will lie in the hands of America’s moms. Republicans have heard the moms of America and desperately need to let them know it. Democrats still need to learn to listen.
