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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy do the DEMS on tv keep calling health insurance an entitlement?
Zerlina Maxwell on Rev Al now, and again refers to it....you can't take away an entitlement....THIS IS A HOT BUTTON WORD FOR THE REPUBLICANS.....stop it, please. Next they will call it abortion insurance....These are OUR guys. They should know better.
burnbaby
(685 posts)Call it an entitlement in order to save the aca. You can't take entitlements away without a backlash
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)and anything that helps poor people in order to paint poor people as having a sense of entitlement. Expanding the use of that concept to working class, middle class, etc in the US diminishes the power of that word to demonize government administered and funded programs that also help people.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)Average Americans have a social safety net. Which is a benefit we all pay taxes for to help ourselves and those less fortunate.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Convince middle class people they are entitled and maybe they'll stop hating poor people.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)You know what else are "hot button words" for Republicans? Equality, Justice, and Liberty
Shandris
(3,447 posts)...take a high ground and all that, but I think I'm coming around to this way of thinking. EVERYTHING triggers them (while they complain about being triggered). It's ridiculous. And I've had quite enough of it.
Don't think I'd call INSURANCE an entitlement though, think I'd call HEALTHCARE an entitlement. Let the Republicans worry about how to come out and say 'No, no one is entitled to live just because we know how to make it happen'.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)Why Dems use the E word is beyond me. It's a dumb word that doesn't even accurately describe those social safety net programs.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)It evokes anti-societal, anti-poor feelings. That's why the GOP uses it.
I am making no judgement about its meaning. I am merely saying that we know using the word helps the GOP. "Social Safety Net" communicates the true purpose and communicates progressive values.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)They ruined that word, so we switched to entitlement -- as in, we were entitled to it because we paid for it -- it was not charity.
Then they ruined that word. They will ruin ANY word that we use for the programs of the social safety net.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)I don't disagree that the right puts a lot of effort into PR and propaganda to ruin words (Masha Gessen's recent articles on language and Putin are particularly good.)
However, the "E word" is particularly good for billionaires and bad for average Americans.
http://www.lettingthedataspeak.com/entitlement-the-word-2/
Consider this statement from a Koch brothers funded website:
Unchecked growth of the massive entitlement programs threatens to bankrupt the U.S. Government in the next few years. This could cripple our economy. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security the three biggest federal programs are on auto-pilot and growing faster than the economy.[vi]
`Entitlements as redefined makes it easy to group these three programs together, along with words like massive, cripple and bankrupt. Why is this misleading? Social Security is not in dire circumstances and so shouldnt be tied in with the two health care programs. The cost increases in Medicare and Medicaid are because of increasing costs of health care generally and are not specific to those programs. Health care cost-growth is considered a problem. Fix that and the Medicare/Medicaid increases are fixed. On the other hand, if the real purpose is to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits, then linking them together as `entitlements along with flavor words warning of doom may be a way to persuade. But it doesnt convey a true impression.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)I like your posts
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)I do acknowledge that that word has been ruined. I just don't have confidence that they won't manage to smear any word we use.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)You are entitled to healthcare and a dignfied old age. Don't let anyone say you are not.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)Billionaire rich kid children, like Ivanka and Jared, are entitled.
We worked for Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. We pay into those programs, either for future benefits or for insurance - to cover us if we happen to get sick.
Those are earned benefits. They are the social safety net.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)The best word the Koches can find to pervert the good SS and Medicare do is the 'e word'. It has a semi-pejorative meaning ("entitled" .
But other words better reflect progressive values with no alternative pejorative connotation. "Social safety net". "Earned benefit".
The Koches use the 'e word' to imply a handout. But really these programs are insurance - we all pay into them so the programs can help us when we need them.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)They really do believe in the survival of the fittest and have convinced themselves that they and their spawn are the fittest.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,097 posts)just as we do, they just dont want trans, gay, black, latino, muslim, jewish, etc. to get get them.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)stopbush
(24,376 posts)not to mention the word Democrat!
These are hot button words for Rs. We should start identifying ourselves as "them."
Eliot Rosewater
(31,097 posts)circumstances, I am a DEMOCRAT.
There was a time in the past when I would not want to be known only as that, but now it is necessary.
Towlie
(5,307 posts)To me, the word "Dem" carries a mildly pejorative tone, and more often than not you see it in something a right-winger wrote.
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)over here, it is a marvelous word...... or abbreviation.
tblue37
(64,979 posts)It is harder to sensibly abbreviate "Republican." Sometimes I use "GOP" but that requires capitalizing all letters--i. e., another awkward keystroke, and my autocorrect keep changing it to "TOP."
MiniMe
(21,676 posts)$1,100/month. And I hate to think of how expensive it would be without the ACA. I'm old enough to really need insurance, but not old enough for Medicare yet. I'm hoping Medicare will still be around in 5 years.
marybourg
(12,540 posts)GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)We need to make the republicans tell the American people that Health Care is not a right. Make them say it over and over.
The American people now see it as a right
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)they bastardize words and give them entirely different meanings...In Wisconsin union and teacher are dirty words, whereas right to work and pro life are good words. You know how they fuck with FREEDOM, free to be poor, uneducated, homeless, without insurance.
That was the point...hot button words the Rs jump on.
marybourg
(12,540 posts)into changing our perfectly appropriate usage of language (again)? Uhh uhh. We've reclaimed
" liberal " and will not be pushed around by their language nazis any more. Entitlement is exactly the right word for things we are entitled to. The real bone of contention is that they don't think we're entitled to anything.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,097 posts)along with the decades of brainwashing they have undergone.
Death tax, etc.
They believe lies, pretty much every single thing they believe is a lie, so we have to figure out how to say these things.
There is no good answer when you are dealing with deplorables.
Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)It just has a negative connotation these days. It conjures up the idea of wanting something for free, unearned.
I'm sure these things are all thoroughly studied and focus-grouped, like "Democrat Party" to give something a negative connotation. The Democrats are generally naive when it comes to branding and naming, much more so than the Republicans.
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)Whatever word we choose, they will turn it into a negative. They did with the word liberal, so some switched to progressive, and they did the same to that word too. "Queer" used to be a perjorative, but when people started to use it on themsleves, it lost its negative power. So don't run from the label, own it!
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)It's far better for us to use "social safety net". Billionaires hate that.
Good explanation:
http://www.lettingthedataspeak.com/entitlement-the-word-2/
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)If you have to get it from someone else, it is not a right. If someone else provides it to you by law, it's an entitlement.
Demsrule86
(68,348 posts)Thanks Obama!
Eliot Rosewater
(31,097 posts)Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)Can you do that? Or do you go get healthcare from someone else?
It's an entitlement.
Autumn
(44,748 posts)not the government. Insurance is not an entitlement. Was she talking about insurance or the ACA?