Bogged down in trying to refute death panel rumors amid polls showing their efforts having little effect, the White House is losing the message war on health care reform.
President Barack Obama is hosting back-to-back town hall meetings Friday and Saturday in Bozeman, Mont., and Grand Junction, Colo., in a last-gasp effort to gain control of the debate before his late-August vacation.
But so far, Obama’s cool, professorial explanations have been no match for heat and passion on the other side. And the White House’s determination to stay above the bickering fray and not engage directly has placed the administration on the outer fringes of its own, national conversation.
“The president feels strongly that when he makes his case, it helps the case for overall health care reform,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday. “I think he feels like we have made progress.”
Even so, Gallup Poll this week found little movement on public opinion over the past few weeks as the White House stepped up its sales campaign.
A poll conducted Aug. 6-9 found 49 percent disapprove of Obama’s handling of health care, and 43 percent approved. A poll taken July 17-19 found 50 percent disapproved and 44 percent approved.
To counter the whisper campaigns they believe are undermining reform efforts, White House officials began an e-mail campaign they hope will go viral, explaining key points and facts about health care reform.
But official pronouncements from the administration are not likely to reach those most alarmed by the specter of government death panels, a hyperbolic outgrowth of a largely benign reform proposal allowing Medicare reimbursal for end-of-life informational counseling.
In the past several days, death panels have come to symbolize for Democrats their inability to persuasively explain what they are trying to do with health care, and for others the much-feared, worst-case scenarios lurking in bills few have seen or read.
“It’s remarkable how the president has been on defense since day one of the health care debate — it’s not a matter of losing control of the debate, they never had control to begin with,” said Republican strategist Alex Conant. “Part of the administration’s problem is their lack of concrete plan — their proposals still lack vital elements, like how to pay for all the new taxpayer costs.”
The White House declined to respond directly to a report by the Huffington Post of remarks by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a key Republican in the health care reform effort, that appeared to bolster the death panel rumors.
The liberal Web site quoted Grassley telling constituents that, “I don’t have any problem with things like living wills, but they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.”
Gibbs, who has been complaining about “misinformation” in the health care debate, said he would have Grassley speak to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who criticized death panel rhetoric.
Late Thursday, Grassley said the end-of-life counseling sessions had been dropped from the House version of the bill.
