Dems fear GOP opposition to rationed health care

NY Times:

Alarmed at Republican attacks on President Obama’s health care proposals, Senate Democrats huddled Wednesday with White House officials to formulate a response.

Democrats said they felt an urgent need to devise a “message” to answer Republicans assertions that Mr. Obama’s proposals could lead to “a Washington takeover of health care.”

...

Senate Democrats met for more than an hour at the Capitol with David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, and Jim Messina, a deputy White House chief of staff.

“Axelrod came to reassure us that they do have a strategy,” Mr. Bayh said.

...

Mr. Luntz met last week with Republican senators. His memorandum, circulated on Capitol Hill, is reminiscent of memos by William Kristol, the Republican commentator, who set out the strategy used by Republicans to defeat the Clinton plan.

In the last two weeks, Republicans have become more outspoken in criticizing the ideas of Mr. Obama and other Democrats who want to establish a government-sponsored health plan that would compete with private insurers in every state. Republicans have not offered a comprehensive proposal of their own, and Mr. Luntz cautioned them against criticizing the president by name.

...

In the memorandum, Mr. Luntz said his polling and analysis had identified this as “the best anti-Democrat message”: “No Washington bureaucrat or health care lobbyist should stand between your family and your doctor. The Democrats want to put Washington politicians in charge of your health care.”

Mr. Luntz advised Republicans to show they “understand and empathize” with voters’ concerns about soaring health costs. “You simply must be vocally and passionately on the side of reform,” he wrote.

He urged Republicans to argue that the Democratic plan would “deny people treatments they need and make them wait to get the treatments they are allowed to receive.”

Mr. Luntz recommended this language: “If you have to wait weeks for tests and months for treatment, that’s a health care crisis.”

...

That is exactly what rationed health care is all about and that is the way Obama and the Democrats plan to "cut cost." I think the GOP should label the plan rationed health care the way I have been doing for months. The examples of the problems caused by rationing in the UK and Canada should be enough to convince people they do not want the Democrat plan.