Health Care Reform: Political Messaging and Jedi Word Tricks

A Boston political activist supporting a strong public health care option asks: "What Would a Jedi Do?"

In 1993, the Republicans derided then President Clinton’s effort to fix the nation’s health care system as the pathway to a Nanny State, otherwise known as “HillaryCare.”  The slogan worked.  Significant health care reform went down in flames.

This time around, it’s Obama “Death Panels.”  Desperate Orwellian rhetoric by Sarah Palin and her fellow Republicans?  Who’s to say?  But regardless of which side of the health-care fence you are standing, you must admit “Death Panels” has a catchy, cable-news-sound-bite-worthy ring to it.  Reducing a complex debate to a simple mantra like Death Panel is savvy political messaging.

To avoid the same fate as in 1993, Democratic supporters of health care reform must counter the opposing party with their own Jedi word tricks.  Evidently, some Democratic word smiths are already thinking along the same (nerdy) lines, as shown in the above photo I snapped in a Boston restaurant last weekend.