The importance behind health insurance reform

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In this video, on MSNBC Live with Carlos Watson, Wendell Potter talks about the dirty tricks that the insurance companies use to keep profits up and costs down, in order to meet their shareholders expectations. As he states, many of these insurance companies will purge people, and even small businesses, if they are filing too many big claims and costing the insurance companies too much money. He says that these companies are more focused on “looking after the bottom line, more than they are looking after the people.”

Many people are arguing that the healthcare industry needs to be left alone because profits are what drives quality care. Unfortunately, as Potter points out profits often drive a focus on the bottom line, which doesn’t always lead to quality care. Making health insurance more accessible to everyone is incredibly important. Providing a lower cost option will force these insurance companies to start focusing less on their profits and more on their consumers.

There are a lot of people who oppose health insurance reform, most of whom are assuming the worst (that the government is trying to control the healthcare industry in it’s entirety). When talking to these people, aside from assuring them that's not the goal, it’s important to use communication that emphasizes values such as equality, quality and opportunity.

Report card for the National Recycling Coalition: B

The National Recycling Coalition helps consumers help mother earth, but they could do a better job of appealing to a wider audience. In today’s day and age, I think it would be hard to find a single person who’s never recycled – but still, I think it’s safe to assume there are many people out there who don’t recycle as well, or as much, as they could.

The National Recycling Coalition could do a better job of convincing people they need to do better if they focused more on values. They hint at the values of recycling, such as sustainability, innovation, opportunity and a thriving economy, but in order to really stress the importance of recycling, they would appeal to a larger audience if they focused their communication on values more frequently.

Kid Sister knows how to Unite and Conquer: Learn from people that are different than you

Kid Sister: Multi-Culti.

Often times, we run from the unknown. And if we’re not taking off in a full-on sprint, we’ll turn our cheek and ignore it. It’s disheartening that throughout our daily lives the moments that we truly embrace others differences are a rare commodity.

Kid Sister, an African American, Native American, and Caucasian rap artist from Obama’s last hometown, is enlightened enough at age 29 to understand that we gain a vast amount of knowledge and insight when we explore others' views. When working in a coalition or trying to work a law through the legislature, it’s important to seek out people that don’t always fit into the cookie cutter mold of what you would expect of people who are passionate about that issue. These people will not only open your eyes to new ideas, but they also can be a tremendous help with strategic communication. They say keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer for a reason. Working with someone who agrees with you on environmental issues, but doesn’t agree with you on abortion, LGBT rights and immigration can help craft a better message that will appeal to similar, like-minded people.

So they next time you’re working on legislation or putting a coalition together, run, don’t walk, towards those people with different views.

Senator Durbin knew that to Unite and Conquer open lines of communication were key, even if he agreed to disagree

In 2006, Time Magazine awarded U.S. Senator Dick Durbin as one of the greatest Senators of all time. I can see why.

Senator Durbin refuses to use notes when addressing issues on the Senate floor, as I’m sure a lot of us progressives are guilty of doing the exact opposite. He often will call people out, asking them the hard questions, which has garnered a lot of respect (especially from CNN viewers) since he is able to truly show how passionate he is about the issues. Because Senator Durbin had very open lines of communication – and was always willing to talk things out and listen to the other side (despite disagreeing) – he has been able to work with some very unlikely people.

During his career, he worked with Senator Santorum, a Pennsylvanian Republican, to push the government to give additional funds of $866 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In 2006, he also helped Democrats and Republicans reach a compromise in the USA Patriot Act, helping keep more personal information private without an order from a judge.

Keeping an open line of communication is crucial to working with people. It’s obvious that Senator Durbin knew how to put differences aside and focus on the greater good and accomplish a lot by working with very diverse people.

President Barack Obama knows how to Unite and Conquer through communicating values

It should come as no surprise that one of the current hot topics in the news and in politics is healthcare reform. Many Republicans have been using fear tactics to try and sway people to go against reforming our healthcare industry, often using extreme examples of people dying in Canada while on waitlists for treatment and stating that if the government takes over healthcare, all the other industries are next.

Now, aside from the faulty logic and their slippery slope arguments, this is a horrible strategy because the main thing that they are communicating is fear. While fear can be motivating, it’s an awful value to communicate because it’s hard to get most people to positively want to associate with fear. When using fear tactics that promote a destitute future, the majority of people are going to respond in anger. And as I’m sure you’ve noticed, past the age of five, screaming rarely wins you an argument.

On the other hand, in the video above, President Barack Obama does a phenomenal job of communicating values. In 2 minutes he touches on many values associated with health care reform that all Americans hold true, such as opportunity, equality, quality, the future, change and well being. He’s not shouting, “If we don’t do this, we’ll all die,” as many opponents have used as a primary strategy. He’s communicating hope for a better tomorrow. Using values and promoting hope, has helped President Obama create a powerful, but calm, force of support.

If you live in Arizona and wish to contribute to the discussion of healthcare reform, please join the Arizonans for Health Reform group on Facebook.

If you don’t live in Arizona and wish to be a part of this dialogue, you can visit my.BarackObama.com/august to find an event near you.