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Dissecting Obama’s Health Care Statement

By: Jon Walker Thursday January 28, 2010 8:59 am

In last night’s State of the Union address, Obama only touched on health care reform briefly. He made it clear he wants something done, but left Democrats scratching their heads about what the path forward should be. Some thoughts:

Now let’s be clear – I did not choose to tackle this issue to get some legislative victory under my belt. And by now it should be fairly obvious that I didn’t take on health care because it was good politics.

I took on health care because of the stories I’ve heard from Americans with pre-existing conditions whose lives depend on getting coverage; patients who’ve been denied coverage; and families – even those with insurance – who are just one illness away from financial ruin.

The fact that Obama mentioned pre-existing conditions is an indication that he may still push for a comprehensive bill, and has not already decided to go for something much more scaled down.

[snip]

If Obama did not reflexively lurch right every time Republicans came up with some new crazy lie about reform, people would be less inclined to believe the lies. The logic goes, if Democrats drop end-of-life counseling quickly because Republicans called it “death panels,” then they probably really were death panels. Why else would Democrats drop the idea so quickly?

Finally, if Obama had made a point of showing how much further to the left the vast majority of Democrats wanted health care reform to be, it would have made it easier for him to explain to the American people that the Senate bill is very much a right-of-center reform package. By never acknowledging that a large percent of the country was far to the left of Obama on this issue, he let the Republicans define his plan as extreme. Hint for Obama: if you pretend everyone to your left does not exist, then, by default, you can never be seen as a “centrist” like you crave. (Emphasis added)

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