Obama Will Speak On Health Care Reform

From TPM:

President Barack Obama plans to tell the country, in more precise terms, what it is he wants to see in a health care reform bill. According to White House adviser David Axelrod, Obama will not put anything new on the table, but will be more specific about his key goals.

That means that Obama will, again, not be insisting on a public option--a development (or a non-development) that's sure to give his progressive base some heartburn.

According to the Associated Press, Obama may give a speech in the next week or two as part of an effort to regain control of the health care reform debate, after losing it during a month of grueling politics.

It's about time. It's past time. But perhaps President Obama is operating on superior wisdom that's not obvious to me. The bully pulpit, Mr. President! You stand at the bully pulpit.

The link within the story, which I included, goes to Politico, which a good many folks say is a right-leaning source, so take it with a grain of salt. However, I think it's probably correct that Obama will not insist on the public option. And that will give Mary Landrieu and her Blue Dog companions great cover.

The crunch may still come if the more progressive members of Congress refuse to yield ground and a bill which includes the public option comes to a vote. If, by some miracle, such a bill makes its way through the Congress to the president's desk, he will surely sign it into law.

However, I'm losing hope that a bill with a "robust" public option will make it through Congress. I'm pleased to see that Democrats, for the most part, have given up on the idea of a bi-partisan bill. The Republicans don't want to play. They want to stop, delay, or do anything to keep any sort of health care reform from happening now, in the hope that it will never happen.

When Obama takes to the bully pulpit, I'd suggest that he use story after story of real people who suffer from the present chaotic system that we call health care, which, for too many, means no care until it's too late. The stories, Mr. President! Bring to the fore the tragic stories of real people who are denied health care.