Obama is about to speak on healthcare reform from the White House. As Rick Sanchez put it, it's because healthcare reform "is in trouble."
This could be critical or it could be nothing. If Obama is willing to come out and start putting pressure on Baucus and Byah and Conrad, this could be huge. If he doesn't, if he's not playing offense, then we could be in trouble.
Obama's demeanor could tell us a lot about the state of play right now in healthcare reform. It's plain that the CBO report, or more accurately the media spin put on the report, is having a devastating impact. The truth is that the CBO scoring means almost nothing, and certainly says very little about the efficacy of a public option in restraining healthcare cost inflation. But the CBO report isn't being reported that way, and Baucus and Conrad are exploiting it to the max.
UPDATE: On the whole, a good presentation. He was very good at emphasizing the principal issue: healthcare cost inflation. If that's the central issue - not near term government expenditures - then the public option wins, because Baucus and the Blue Dogs do NOTHING to exert pressure on healthcare cost inflation.
Apparently CNN and MSNBC will be covering the news conference live. Use this diary if you'd like to live-blog the news conference.
If you're not in front of a television, click here to watch MSNBC's coverage of the news conference on-line.
I would hope that Obama does the following two things in this press conference:
First, make clear that the CBO score is very limited in application and DOES NOT give effect to the savings produced by the public option in the out years. He should point out that even if the public option were wildly successful in exerting downward pressure on healthcare cost inflation, the near-term federal government expenditures would still increase because of the government expense of providing the public option. The benefits of the public option will not truly be felt until beyond the first ten years, but will be ongoing and increasingly large.
Second, make clear that the Baucus plan, at least as it has been described, will be an inflationary disaster and will increase federal government expenditures in the long-term far more than the House and HELP reform bills.
In addition to these two substantive elements, the tone in this news conference will be critical. Obama has to take on Baucus and the Blue Dogs directly. He can't be offering to compromise on the public option. As a practical matter, Obama will probably be cagey about this in this news conference. If he keep talking up the public option, that's good. If he's making overtures to Baucus, Conrad and Bayh, that's bad.