Who's Talking About Health Care? Not Main Street - Ed Keller - MediaBizBloggers

Members of Congress of both parties are talking again about health care The House of Representatives made a vote to repeal quotObamacarequot its first legislative agenda item for the new Congress They said it was what they were elected to doBut are the American people talking about health care too Not particularly according to the most recent word of mouth tracking by my firmIn the fourth quarter of 2010 a period that included the run up to the election as well as the Lame Duck Congress that followed we were measuring daily the major issues about which the American people were talking either offline or online quotHealth insurance and the health care systemquot ranked 10th out of 17 areas tracked during this period Economic issues dominated the list amp8211 topics such as people39s concern about their financial situation ways to cut back on expenses looking for a job or worrying about losing one Education and energy costs also were discussed more frequently than health careThis is a very different situation than the summer of 2009 with the heated debate in Congress followed by the town hall meetings during the August Congressional recess when we saw a major run up in consumer conversation At that time health care was talked about almost as frequently as the economy Indeed during two weeks in September 2009 it was a close second to financial concerns for issues being talked about We saw another minispike in March 2010 when the legislation passed the Senate and the House of Representatives and was signed into law by the PresidentBut talk about health care began to drop sharply after it passed in Congress and was signed into law by the President It has shown no real signs of rebounding The only demographic group for which it is truly a top tier topic of conversation is the 60 and retired segment Meanwhile the issue that continues to dominate the American people39s day to day conversations is concern about their own financial situation and other economic mattersThese findings give credence to the view that this issue was brought to the House floor to satisfy the core constituency of the new Republican majority not really because it39s quotwhat everyone is talking aboutquot The talk on Main Street remains focused squarely on the economyEd Keller CEO of the Keller Fay Group has been called quotone of the most recognized names in word of mouthquot The publication of Keller39s book The Influentials has been called the quotseminal moment in the development of word of mouthquot Ed can be contacted at ekellerkellerfaycomRead all Edamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at WOM MattersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerMediaBizBloggers is an openthought leadership blog platform for media marketing and advertising professionals companies and organizations To contribute contact Jackmediadvisorygroupcom The opinions expressed in MediaBizBloggerscom are not those of Media Advisory Group its employees or other MediaBizBloggerscom contributors Media Advisory Group accepts no responsibility for the views of MediaBizBloggers authors

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Who's Talking About Health Care? Not Main Street - Ed Keller - MediaBizBloggers

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