‘Special interests have kicked your butt:’ Wendell Potter to single-payer group

[kpete]

‘Special interests have kicked your butt:’ Wendell Potter to single-payer group

By Nathan Diebenow
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011 -- 11:11 pm
"You need to start telling things in story form"


Proponents of a Medicare-for-all health finance system in America ought to more aggressively promote their vision in the media with public relations tools, a former private health insurance spokesperson advised.

"Special interests have kicked your butt with the skillful use of language," Wendall Potter, author of "Deadly Spin," told the Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP) at the Murphy Institute for Education and Labor Studies Tuesday.

"You need to have others telling your story for you," he added. "You also need to spend time developing your messaging in ways that will connect people emotionally. That is exactly what the opposition has done."

Potter, a former vice president of corporate communications for Cigna Corp., said that bringing people the facts about a single-payer health system would make their "eyes glaze over."

more:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/wendell-potter-to-single-payer-group-special-interests-have-kicked-your-butt/

[elocs]

1. The tea party has certainly shown that facts & figures do not move people--it's emotion.

Sounds like a plan. There's no point in doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

[CTyankee]

3. Yes! As the saying goes, "sell the sizzle, not the steak."

[xchrom]

2. that applies not just to single payer advocates.

those of us left progressives can and should do better with messaging.

[ehrnst]

4. Self - Delete.

[slipslidingaway]

5. knr - now if PNHP just had all that special interest money and access to corporate ...

media.

[MisterP]

6. every day there are dozens of media stories and DU posts saying

the new House wants to repeal "our health care" we got with HCR

it's downright North Korean