A Second Look | Incremental Change We Can Believe In

via The Health Care Speech, Revealed – The Daily Beast.

In his speech on Wednesday, September 8, the President will outline what he sees as necessary for insurance reform.

Obama inaguration speech

President Barack Obama plans to reach out to Republicans and reassure Democrats in his address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday on health-care reform. Obama will warn them that perfectionism could result in no bill at all, as happened in 1994, Politico reports. Top aides say Obama will lay out a “President’s Plan,” which will make clear what he considers on the table and what warrants further debate. Obama will not scold the left and will reassure them about his commitment to the public option. But Obama doesn’t want to give the impression that health reform should only pass if it includes a government insurance plan. The speech is still being formed and the president has yet to decide if he’ll include nitty-gritty legislative details in the address.

Obama is going to tell us that insurance reform must include those things that will alleviate the financial pain that every American feels when they get seriously sick or injured, and alleviate the rising costs of out-of-pocket expenses every average American pays to our health care industry.

Giving Barack the benefit of the doubt, his viewpoints on insurance regulation are more than welcome. Some points he might make is that under his planthere will be no exorbitant out-of-pocket deductibles or co-pays, and that there will be no discrimination for pre-existing conditions. He will tell su that insurance reform must prevail, and he is right.

Obama will try to sell us on the idea that we cannot throw out the bathwater to save the baby -  that the public option is a goal and it is not the end-all. Conservatives will nod their approval, but what do you do with liberal progressives that worked their tails off to get him elected, who demand not only a public option but a full-blown single payer system such as H.R. 676, Medicare for All?

You tell them that what we need right now is insurance reform. The White House web site, along with all the rhetoric from Obama’s spokespersons, has changed the terminology from health care reform to insurance reform. You tell them that the public option is always on the table even when you have tossed in that particular bargaining chip. You tell them that this is a step toward the public option, which can wait, in a way that doesn’t set off another shit storm from the right-wing echo machine. This is what Obama plans to do Wednesday – tell the left that they will  get better insurance and at the same time soothe the right by down-playing the public option.

The White House mouth-pieces made the rounds today. David Axelrod was on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Robert Gibbs was on ABC’s “This Week”.

Gibbs said Obama will refocus the debate on the benefits of overhauling the system: more security and lower costs for the majority of people who have health insurance, and new ways to help self-employed people and small businesses get coverage.

“People will leave that speech knowing where he stands,” said Gibbs.

Let’s hope.