The field of cognitive neuroscience has all but given up trying to distinguish between emotion and reason, but political debate evidently lags far behind the science. Some observers of health care politics, particularly on the left, tend to accuse their opponents of trying to trigger emotional panic points rather than argue dispassionately about the facts. The implication is that the Right doesn't have any facts, so it looks to exploit voters' fears. There is something to be said for this argument, but it's not what proponents would have you believe. In policy debates where the target voter claims an independent identity, the side that's proposing something usually has a set of normative facts, and the side that's against something always appeals to that which most powerfully undercuts a fact. Democrats and Republicans both use emotion, but they use it differently, and use it to achieve different goals.
The pro-reform side is appealing to emotion, too -- albeit a wholly different emotion -- the self-satisfaction one feels when one believes one has rationally deliberated something and meaningfully contributed to an important public debate. This is called a solidary incentive. It's a powerful -- and often completely ignored -- sentiment, one that the Obama presidential campaign found, capitalized on, and won the election by exploiting.
The Democrats and Obama assume that, inside every voter who isn't an instinctive partisan, there is a competition of sorts -- a calculus, subject to outside influences: If the voter succombs to the fear-emotion, he or she will retreat into a comfortable partisan shell. If the voter is convinced that the partisan games are wrong, the voter will seek refuse in a side that more closely aligns with different values.
For the right to win the health care fight, they'll want to speed up the voters' decision-making. The more quickly the voter accesses certain emotions, the harder it is to slow down, reassess, and access different ones. Democrats are asking voters, in essence, to simmer down. Use reason; be conscious about the process of thinking through health care. If you hear something check it out. Within the pro-reform and anti-reform camps, there is plenty of variety when it comes to strategies, although the general pattern seems to stick.
My trendy, journalistic equivocation kicks in now: the right is obviously appealing to anger and fear, and the Democrats are mostly appealing to solidary cohesion. In some debates, the left has fear-mongered and the right hasn't -- like Social Security. To be sure, there's always pollination -- the right, in arguing for Social Security, tried to stoke fears of the program's allegedly imminent bankruptcy. And Democrats do have an advantage when defending government programs -- they're the party that doesn't reflexively oppose them.
Pointing out that both sides engage in the same tactics, and that, in this case, one set of tactics seems to be unrelated to a substantive policy outcome neither presuppose the truth of one side of the debate nor does it presuppose that one side of the debate isn't actually, ultimately, right. In the same way, it is illogical to assume that because one side distorts the debate far more than the other side, the debate itself ought to turn out in any perscribed way. When I write things like this, it drives some partisans absolutely crazy. They don't like where the I'm drawing the "truth" line, and instead of reading the judgments that I've made -- the Right is appealing to anger and fear and is distorting the debate more -- they focus on the link that I won't then make -- the link that I have no expertise to make -- the link that, if I were to make it, I would be guilty of an offense against democracy -- the link between what IS and what OUGHT to be.
It's a media cop-out when a journalist refuses to use their expertise to inform a debate even when it might influence the debate to go in a certain direction. Every intervention will influence the debate. It is foolish to think otherwise. In some debates, the interventions will accumulate and give ammunition to one side. That's the price of doing good journalism. But influencing the debate by relating considered judgments is different than presupposing how the debate will end, or how it ought to end.
Hope kicks fear's ass. Just sayin.
Honestly, what I like about Obama's approach is that he almost always tries to debate different sides of the same topic. I, for one, get incredibly frustrated with "journalists" who deem this process boring or claim that he's being "defensive" when doing so. To me, recognizing objections and drawing some distinctions between fact and fiction are the only ways to promote progress in a discussion.
However, I don't think trying to have factual debate necessarily translates into pretending to be strictly objective or emotionless. In fact, Obama concedes--quite readily--that *empathy* is a valuable tool in the decision-making process. It would be incredibly illogical to try to govern people as if they were robots and not people. (Or...say...to invade a relatively authoritarian country and assume that its inhabitants would logically embrace free-market capitalism.) And while Republicans may have some actual meaningful facts they--theoretically--could be using in their arguments, the loudest among them are choosing not to. Debates on these terms rarely conclude with the best possible outcomes. And, in that sense, the process itself is undermining the product. But it is what it is.
Conservatives and liberals seem to have very different memories of the Social Security debate. I most remember the empty file cabinet props and persistent claims of a bankrupt Treasury. But, if getting people to appreciate the volatility of the market counts as fear-mongering, I guess the left is guilty in that respect.As to the whole presupposing the outcome of the discussion thing, I was under the impression that's what those in your field do best. But I agree that it's not a good thing. However, I still might be inclined to debate your "truth" line from time to time.
Marc: I don't understand what you are trying to argue here. Is this supposed to be an apologia for media even-handedness? It seems to fail in its intent. "Both sides appeal to emotions"...but are fear/rage and social solidarity really to be ranked equally? There is an argument to be made for that proposition, but you don't make it. And since it contradicts most people's natural assumptions about the way political discourse ought to work, you should make that argument.
As for the closing part of the piece, I have no idea what you are talking about. You do not name your interlocutors, you provide no summary of what they criticize you for. So your attempted answer to them is very hard to understand.
Please try again.
Conservatives have totally flummoxed liberals in this debate. Let me explain.
Judging from the smug, all-knowing comments from liberals about ObamaCare found on these pages, I think many liberals view themselves as smart, caring individuals and conservatives as stupid, vicious people who can't possibly have anything valuable to say. Thus any conservative opinion is automatically rejected.
For example, many liberals go ballistic when conservatives rightly point out that the government-run insurance plan, aka the public option, will run private health insurance companies out of business. [The government has almost unlimited capital and borrowing capacity, pays no taxes, and writes the rules.] And if you don't believe me, President Obama and various Democrat higher-ups are on record as saying that's exactly what they intend to do as a prelude to Nirvana, a single-payer plan.
Thus conservatives conclude that liberals lack "critical thinking skills" (a skill liberals assume only they possess) or that liberals really do think conservative are so stupid as to believe President Obama and his acolytes won't impose the single-payer plan as soon as possible.
The only way conservatives flummox liberals is with their ceaseless ability to ignore the truth and live in their own fictions.
In every variant of the public option being proposed, it would get start up capital from the government but then would get its money the same way insurance companies do - through premiums and copays - not the treasury.
Also, Obama is not on record saying he intends to have the public option be a trojan horse for single payer - he's on record saying the opposite. Of course, if you google "obama single payer" on google news, what you find is like 1000 conservative pundits trying to convince you of the opposite. Quotes taken out of context and accusations of lying are the foundations of their arguments.
Yes, many liberals want single payer. Yes, some view the public option as an opportunity to grow on in the future. But it's not going to put insurance companies out of business and it won't be single payer - any change to the program in that direction would require a great deal of political consensus and would be years down the line.
Actually, yes he did.
http://www.verumserum.com/
http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2009/08/the-public-option-trojan-horse-for-single-payer.html
As Cassandra said when she saw that large horse outside the city walls of Troy: Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. [As quoted in Vergil's Aeneid, "I fear Greeks bearing gifts."]
"The pro-reform side is appealing to emotion, too -- albeit a wholly different emotion -- the self-satisfaction one feels when one believes one has rationally deliberated something and meaningfully contributed to an important public debate."
Nonsense. The pro-reform side isn't saying, Join us and feel good about yourself. It's saying, Join us, because what we're promoting benefits you, us, and everyone else.
"The Democrats and Obama assume that, inside every voter who isn't an instinctive partisan, there is a competition of sorts -- a calculus, subject to outside influences: If the voter succombs to the fear-emotion, he or she will retreat into a comfortable partisan shell. "
Also fatuous. The left assumes, with increasing justification every passing day, that if the voter "succombs" (sic) to the fear-emotion, he or she will fight, rage, or panic--all emotionally--at falsehoods, and at things that will work to the detriment of the voter's self-interest.
You're saying that there is no important difference between the emotions at play while presenting a fact-based argument, and the emotions on display when reacting in a state of ignorance, panic, and demagogically-stimulated fear.
Jesus Christ, what tripe. And learn to spell "succumb."
Mr. W: See my post above. My emotion is that I'm tired of being called stupid and vicious by people who continue to deny that a single-payer plan is not in the works, despite President Obama and others repeatedly saying that it is.
You persist in flaunting your insecurities as evidence of your persecution. Does this victimization mindset usually work out for you? Is it the basis for your conspiratorial concerns or maybe a result of them? Do tell!
You're not stupid, you're probably not vicious (although I'll take that on faith). Many of those screaming and disrupting the town halls *are* stupid, however. I'm going to go out on a limb and declare that if a person believes that Obama wants to create panels that decide who lives and who dies, they are stupid. Starting with the sublimely stupid Sarah Palin. And, as the Daily Show has aptly said, we already have such things. They're called insurance companies.
You can quote Virgil until the cows come home, but your linked examples to "proof" that Obama is planning a single-payer plan are disingenuous at best. He may have said that he preferred one if "starting from scratch," but that, as you well know, is a hypothetical absolute used to make a rhetorical point. He has said, just as many times if not more, that he does not want to put insurance companies out of business.
Finally, the argument that the government will run insurance companies out of business is hilarious on its face. Opponents of Obama will have to make up their minds: Will government-run health care be a catastrophe "because look at the DMV," or will it be a ruthlessly efficient bargain, easily able to under-bid the insurance companies? Because it can't be both.
The real comparison is between the Post Office and FedEx and UPS.
Or answer this: Can you justify a system in which 45-50 million people have no health insurance?
Not exactly understanding the basis for the hostility in this thread. I don't think Ambinder was intending to go full-on po mo. I'm on board with any attempt to get under the covers of this debate. Even though the intent of the post doesn't appear to be fully realized, its genesis seems clear enough. It's easy to feel secure in one's position on an issue when the other side insists on making absolute asses out of themselves. Just like in the lead up to Iraq when the only lefties the media would exhibit would be the crazy flame-throwers. That didn't make the left any less right about Iraq. It just made the Bush Administration unjustifiably appear reasonable. The big problem here may be that we don't seem to have access to the reasoned folks offering an alternative vision. Are there any?
I plead guilty to hostility. I spend (ie, waste) a lot of the day reading about the utter mendacity and/or stupidity of the right, and then see video of people braying nonsense and applauding each other for being "brave" and "patriotic." I think many of those people are whipped into a froth of rage by demagogues like Limbaugh, Hannity, and the certifiable Glenn Beck, and I get frustrated that THAT is what seems to constitute public discourse on this issue.
I agree with your ultimate point. If there are reasoned arguments against or to mitigate the problems with what's being proposed, let's hear them. But--and this may be purely a function of the sites I read--all I see are mobs indignantly denouncing untruths and shouting nonsense.
I do think, though, that the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries do not share my (and your) public-spirited desire for a reasoned debate. They're spending tens of millions to manipulate the mobs of idiots, the media, and, of course, Congress, to prevent fixing a system that is clearly broken. That pisses me off, too.
You lose your way in the first sentence - hint: when making broad-brush statements about cognitive neuroscience, it is useful to actually cite a cognitive neuroscientist instead of a writer for Wired. There are plenty of cognitive neuroscientists trying to distinguish between reason and emotion - I work with some of them (I can send you their names if you like).
But then you just make it worse by claiming that health care proponents are using facts only so they can feel the "self-satisfaction one feels when one believes one has rationally deliberated something and meaningfully contributed to an important public debate." So using facts and reason aren't good because they offer an objective way to reach a conclusion, it's just so that we can feel good about ourselves! Damn, I wish my mentor had told me that! So then magically the facts and reasoning the health care proponents use just go away and this becomes what Beltway pundits like Ambinder just love: a tussle in which both sides use the same tactics. This is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order and it makes the "seeking refuse" comment seem more like a Freudian slip than a failure to spell check.
BTW Elmer, if the government really can run the insurance company out of business, doesn't that mean that the insurance companies shouldn't be in the business in the first place? I thought the free market was all about efficiency - if the government can offer cheaper, better services htat customers prefer, than that's all good, right? Of course we have seen numerous times how the notion of "free markets" somehow gets dropped like a hot potato when it produces an undesirable conclusion.
This strikes me as the equivalent of observing that all human decisions are in some way self-serving -- even the soldier who throws himself on a grenade does so because death is preferable to living with the consequences of inaction. It's the kind of "deep thought" that you expect to hear in the freshman dorm, and is ultimately just as intellectually empty and useless. If you're really arguing that altruism is the equivalent of selfishness, or that rationality is as suspect as any methodology because the motive to use it is ultimately emotional, you want the door labeled "Third Rate Philosophy" rather than "Political Science."
The Frito Pundito:
Do you remember learning about Teddy Roosevelt (a TRUE progressive)and the other "trust busters"? Do you recall the Miller Anti-Trust Act? It kept entities from creating monopolies by underselling all competition until they were all that were left. The government's ability to outspend without a profit is the government doing what the progressives of the last century fought so hard to end. When monopolies were created it was not because the competitors had a flawed business model, it was because the aspiring trust could outspend them and then do whatever they wanted as a monopoly. Your argument is a fallacy based on a lack of understanding of history and reform.
Your assumption is that government will give better service. Ask yourself this: Do I get compassionate service from my monopoly cable company? Did the government split up Bell and AT&T in the 80's because of their great service? Think of any single provider of s product or service - do they care about the customer? Of course not, they are the only game in town.
Also, power corrupts and those in power will do what is necessary to stay there. Arlen Specter switched parties so he could stay in power, no other reason. Also - regardless of initial promises of restraint, government alway grows. Look at the social security number, the tax code, OSHA regulations, the ADA, and many others. Once government is in the business it will grow like a fungus.
Also, government jobs are a property right - so the people managing your health care will know they cannot be fired without a long and costly bureaucratic process. SO the cost of care will be balanced against the legal costs to fire the inept. Does that sound appealing to you? A 911 operator slept on the job and caused people to die by delaying ambulances here in ATL. Her supervisors did not want to try to fire her because of the hassle involved. Coming to a clinic near you!
The psych eval here is that liberals are idealists who believe in the triumph of the human spirit. In order to believe that way, they must convince themselves they have thought through all the possibilities. Conservatives are realists who have seen the evil in the hearts of men and wish to guard against it. They get angry when others do not see what they think is obvious. Both are needed for a society to flourish as is evident by the massive failures of the present and the last administrations. Believing in the triumph of the human spirit is fine, but you also need some history students to point out what generally happens when people gain power over others. When the Left did it we got Stalin. When the right did, Hitler. Both are government gone horribly wrong.
Don't let either side get too much power, or we and our children will pay. Do not let the camel of government stick under the edge of your tents!
Do I not care about the unfortunate, the disabled, the chronically poor or the just plain lazy? No! What we need is a safety net. Medicaid needs to be re-vamped to provide clinics so the emergency room can be for emergencies. For those who cannot pay - diagnostic tools need to be available at central locations. This is needed.
Read the Canadian and British newspapers - for a few weeks and you will see what is coming. I do. I am frightened.
Wait a second! I thought liberals were nihilists who wanted nothing more than to kill old people and retarded kids.
And in conclusion: Be afraid...be very afraid.
Atlanta Native: Cassandra would give you kudos for your explanation why the government plan will quickly become an uncaring, out-of-control monopoly.
Of course, Slag missed the whole point.
Mr. Wonderful:
How would you feel if the Bush administration was running public health care? Perhaps as well as they did FEMA? See the problem is that one day the other party will be in power and then what will happen to your Utopian health care dream?
You are correct that conservatives are not always realists. Especially when it comes to regulation - a necessary government function. The S and L scandal and lack of securities regulation that lead to our mortgage meltdown (as well as people who tried to live beyond their means on borrowed money).
I do not think that a liberal administration is capable of running the nation's health care industry. Same for a conservative one. (Though calling Bush a conservative is mis-labeling in my book). Same for a centrist one - like the Clinton administration.
Remember SNAFU was first used to describe government in the 1940's. It has been true ever since.
"Conservatives are realists".
As O'Connell used to say in Northern Exposure: In your dreams, Fleischman.
Conservatives may have been realists long ago and far away, but at least since Reagan we haven't had conservatives. We've had "conservatives," who will endure any corporate profit, ask others to bear any burden, and cheer when others make the supreme sacrifice, in service to their dreams of "spreading democracy" (via Pentagon contracts) and "limiting government" (only insofar as it beggars the public sector and enhances corporate bottom lines).
The only thing the GOP cares about, in the end, is money. Even power is a means to that end. If that's your definition of conservative, you're welcome to it.
Or perhaps you want to defend BushCo--nation-building, budget-busting, "deficits-don't-matter," illegal wiretapping, effacement of habeas corpus and all--as "conservative." Go ahead. Isometrics are good for muscles. Even the ones in your head.
Pushed the wrong reply button. Reply is above.
Those are all cogent objections to the public plan. So...leave it out. What about mandated coverage, subsidies for medium-low income people, and new federal regulations of the health insurance market (community rating, no pre-existing conditions, etc.), and possibly some kind of co-ops. All those, no public plan. Are you on board? If not, what's the alternative?
GFY, Ambinder, you weak-kneed sop. Your "journalistic equivocation" hasn't been trendy for at least a dozen Presidential administrations. Why do you and your self-hating ilk continue to be so scared of reporting the truth as you see it?
No. Only the evil overlords. :-)
Ouch. I prefer to think of myself as attempting to teach Pandora restraint.
Judging from the smug, all-knowing comments from liberals about ObamaCare found on these pages, I think many liberals view themselves as smart, caring individuals and conservatives as stupid, vicious people who can't possibly have anything valuable to say. Thus any conservative opinion is automatically rejected.
Well, there's a marked tendency for any ideological group to do that. Including conservatives when the shoe is on the other foot.
There is, however, a frustration with many conservatives' unwillingness to address any of the plans as a whole. You don't like the public option. Fine. A lot of people don't, including Democrats.
What about the rest of it? Leave out the public plan (which the final bill probably would anyway). We still have mandates, subsidies for low income people, and new regulations for private insurance? Let's talk about those. Let's talk about them. Enough with the slippery slope arguments.
For example, many liberals go ballistic when conservatives rightly point out that the government-run insurance plan, aka the public option, will run private health insurance companies out of business.
If that's the way it works out, then boo frickin' hoo. But again, a strong public plan is unlikely. Tell us about the rest of it, which is 85% or 95% of the bill anyway.
Slaney Black: Appreciate your polite comments. If it wasn't late at night, I'd be happy to discuss the rest of ObamaCare in greater depth.
Suffice it to say, I'm highly skeptical that the well-meaning folks that spawned HB 3200 can truly exercise effective command and control over 1/6th of the nation's economy. [Atlanta Native gave some of the reasons.] Being an Army officer, CPA, and now an IRS agent, I've the federal government goof up one major project after another in my 62 years. In the case of ObamaCare, I think these same good folks have understated the costs, overstated the revenues, and haven't identified and or are flat hiding major unintended consequences, such as the effect of ObamaCare on people who already have health insurance.
We need market-based solutions that encourage competition. McCain suggested giving individuals more control of their health insurance choices by taxing employer health benefit but also granting a large tax credit. However then candidate Obama ruthlessly demogogued the issue. Perhaps we can start over and do things like permit small businesses to form groups and permit interstate insurance policies. There's a lot of good market-based suggestions out there that don't involve the federal government taking over everything.
Hmmmm, Army officer? = government provided healthcare, IRS agent? = government provided healthcare. You sir, HAVE government provided healthcare. I am still waiting to hear from anyone who is NOT in some way, sucking the governmental teat who thinks that a "Market based solution" is the way to go. Why does it appear that anyone who is even marginally responsible for their own health care expense recognizes that the current system is not rational or sustainable, and those who are not, seem to feel that what is proposed is some sort of abomination.
Market based solutions are ALWAYS subordinate to the understanding that profit is the highest good. Exactly what type of format would "Market based solutions that encourage competition" have? Hmmm? I know, some sort of 'public option' or something like that. Taxing employer benefits does nothing to change the circumstances for millions. Roughly 80 MILLION people did NOT have benefits of ANY kind at some point in the past two years. If you have the misfortune to have YOUR disqualifying medical event in that period, you simply CANNOT GET COVERAGE. Tell me something that will address THAT.
As someone who HAD benefits (until I was laid off, and couldn't find any employment for 26 months, and could no longer afford COBRA, and then had an illness, and now have a pre-existing, yadda, yadda) I am incensed at the nonsense that gets excreted by posters. Non participants in the "market" that they wish others to embrace need to sit this one out.
I am covered by private insurance. I also provide insurance for my employees. My siblings all own their own businesses, also. They provide coverage to their employees also.
I want people to have coverage, but the 80 Million number is a bit misleading. In my late 20's and early to mid 30's I had no health insurance. I bought other things, just not health insurance as it did not seem like a good gamble. Many people who are not covered choose not to be either rationally or through their choices to spend money on other things prior to insurance.
There needs to be a safety net, true. But I stand my my earlier predictions as to where what is being offered will go.
http://bit.ly/Lf5o8
great comment
I think these people arguing for private-only, free-market everything, probably wouldn't like their local law enforcement to be replaced by the private mercenaries which were convicted of atrosities over the past 8 years ...
Hey, everyone knows cops have quotas to make and that's why you got nailed goin 5 mph over the speed limit ...
Just imagine when private mercenaries get incentives for wasting fewer bullets, and instead of shoot to disarm or wound, start shooting to kill? Because let's face it, it costs a whole lot of money to try and imprison law-breakers. Kill on first offense allows that private mercenary group to offer incentives for those who save us more money by getting rid of all those people that cause us harm.
Think of the private industries people!
This free-market argument is as idiotic as it was when the Reaganites spawned it as the new right-wing mantra.
How is it demonstrably better having a delusional, self-centered, immoral & profit-obsessed industry "control 1/6 of the nation's economy"? If this were true, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
We currently HAVE a market-based solution. That's the problem.
Why is it so hard for Conservatives to see that it isn't working & it's not welfare to insist that we need a system that actually provides the desired social outcome [universal coverage], rather than providing the desired free market outcome [profits to industry at whatever cost to the population]?
And Ambinger, you disappoint me. Humans are emotional. Duh.
But there's a world of difference between the satisfied emotions generated by doing the work of researching a position, & those felt while cowering like a slave when some corporate segment irrationally terrifies you in order to protect their fat cash cow.
your argument is based on a very shaky assumption; that all emotions work the same way. Which they dont. Anger and envy for instance, are easier to trigger than pro-social emotions. Fear, and paranoia, is very, very easy to trigger. Compassion (if that's an emotion), is among the first to go when people are put under pressure. Few places in the western world are people as pressed as in the US. If this holds true (which it does), the right go for the more primitive emotions.
When one reads the arguments concerning the devastating results a real public health system would have on America, it's hard to believe one get's paid for that stuff. Do you guys ever travel (besides mexico and Iraq))? Or read? I mean, I pay 250 dollars a year, and it covers the doctor, hospital, emergency treatments - the whole thing. No-one checks if i'm insured if i need to go to the hospital (happened to me twice). No, it's not the oil (i'm in Norway, sweden works pretty much the same way) - we actually pay taxes and use them wisely. And we dont pay a whole lot more than u guys either. Ur standard of living? Like what, those lame SUVs? How about air, space, crime? How about thee public's general knowledge about the world? Participation in elections? We dont allow companies putting their vacumcleaners in our wallets. Why on earth should you spend tax-money on insurence companies that make huge profits, instead of normal, unexiting public health care institutions?
Ok,
i'll brace myself for the paranoid replies.
I can't understand the argument of those opposed to a public option. If a well-run public option were available, we'd all be better off.
Of course, the opponents' argument is that the government is incapable of running it well, so we'll all be in trouble if the public option materializes. The catch is, if the government is incapable of running anything right, then how could it possibly wipe out private insurance? If it's not competent, then it *can't* wipe out private insurance.
There's absolutely no way around this.