WASHINGTON INSIGHT

HEALTHY TALK: The White House is learning something about words: Those that turn people on, not off, could be crucial to selling a major overhaul of health insurance. “The terms that health care policy elites use are not very salable,” says Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who wryly regrets tipping off key Democrats to this insight--because it has nudged them toward more appealing rhetoric . . . . A prime specimen is managed competition , a term to describe a concept being embraced by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health care reform task force. It refers to large consumer pools staffed by professionals who would shop among doctors, hospitals and insurers for the best insurance plans. “Who wants to be managed? And competition at the consumer level? That suggests lowering costs by lowering quality,” says McInturff, who stumbled on the negative interpretations in focus groups. So White House officials have stopped uttering “managed competition.” . . . Similarly, the Clinton task force no longer seeks to provide basic health benefits for all Americans; it’s now comprehensive benefits. “A basic package means ‘good enough for the poor but not for me and my family,’ ” McInturff says. “But comprehensive suggests everything except plastic surgery.”