Ready for the newest Obamacare messaging?

By Warner Todd Huston

ABC's Jake Tapper has an interesting look inside the Obama messaging factory as it appears to be making plans to change its way of trying to sell Obamacare to the country. This change is in the offing because Obama is thus far losing the debate and they are all painfully aware of this in the White House.

Tapper has a revealing quote from former Senator Tom Daschle (D, SD) that presages the new, new way of selling the snake oil that is Obamacare.

"I think we have to do better at making this issue a moral imperative," Daschle told the New York Times Magazine.

"I don't think we've succeeded at that yet. I think the more we can bring everybody to an understanding about how this, in many respects, is the civil rights battle of the early part of this century — it's a fight for the disabled, it's a fight for the sick, it's a fight for equal rights when it comes to health."

So we've gone from calling it a "healthcare" plan, to calling it "insurance reform," now, it seems, we are about to retool the debate into a "civil rights" issue.

Of course, there is nothing about this debate that makes it into a "civil rights" debate. Healthcare is not a civil right. But this shows that team Obama knows they are losing and are desperate to find a new, new way to sell this boondoggle.

Tapper goes to report a risible claim made by Former Senator Bob Dole:

"If I were a White House adviser, I would suggest that the day Congress reconvenes, President Obama's version of reform should be introduced by Democratic leaders in the House and Senate," writes former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kansas, in a Washington Post op-ed. "Obama's approval numbers would jump 10 points if Americans knew he was fully in charge."

If he were a White House adviser? Who the heck is Dole trying to help?

Of course we all know that Daschle is the White House adviser so why we are hearing from Dole is anyone's guess. Every paper and news source in the country has been talking of Daschle's new standing as an "outsider adviser" to the Obama administration on the healthcare issue.

Daschle also belched out the talking point du jour that all the opposition to Obamacare is somehow not real, but is only the result of nefarious, backroom conservative groups and their dreaded "organizing."

"I think in part because the organizational strength of the other side has once again surfaced," he said. "The other side has socialism, they have fear of government, they have rationing and all these — Scare phrases. The Democrats need better phrases. We do."

Well, Tommy, we have "socialism" and "rationing" because that is what YOU are giving us. If you want to assure the U.S. that you don't want socialism, bloated government and healthcare rationing, I am afraid that you'll have to dump your healthcare plans!

In any case, what we are seeing here is the first hints that the White House is war-rooming this healthcare debate and looking to re-tool its rhetoric to try and pull the wool over our eyes in a new way, one they think might help them institute their nationalization of one sixth of our nation's economy.

And now the news has emerged that Obama plans to offer "his own" healthcare plan. As the recess ends and Congress goes back to work, get ready for a whole new approach by the White House.

Don't be fooled, though. It's still a pig n a poke.

(Cross posted at HealthcareHorseRace.com.)

© Warner Todd Huston