Adam Nagourney:
For nearly an hour, Mr. Obama spoke strongly and passionately, pausing only to acknowledge the repeated cheers from his audience as he made what appeared to be his clearest and most concise case yet on a complicated issue that had repeatedly defied his communications skills.
He managed to invest his case with both economic and emotional urgency — particularly when he invoked the memory of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, whose widow, Victoria, was in the audience — without getting bogged down in too many details.
Kaiser health news:
Obama To Congress And The Nation: 'I Will Not Accept The Status Quo'
News round-up by AP and others.
The day after The Speech:
Obama's offer to back an effort to limit malpractice verdicts against physicians may have been devised as a carrot to attract Republicans to his side, and it could also attract support from another key constituency, says William O'Neill, dean of clinical affairs at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. "It could make doctors stand up and take notice," he said. "If the administration could get physicians enthused, then they would enthuse their patients."
And a round-up by The Health Care Reform Debate Blog shows that the docs are there.
Today, the American Medical Association sent a letter to House leaders supporting H.R. 3200, "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009." "This legislation includes a broad range of provisions that are key to effective, comprehensive health system reform," said J. James Rohack, MD, AMA president. "We urge the House committees of jurisdiction to pass the bill for consideration by the full House."
Chris Cillizza:
• Republicans' Audio-Visual Problem: It's always a mistake to assume that the only thing viewers take from a nationally televised speech is the words the president is using. If so, the White House could simply release the remarks and be done with it. Visuals (and audio) matter. And, the two most compelling pieces of audio-visual that came out of tonight's speech -- House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) checking his blackberry and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouting "you lie" at Obama -- don't work in Republicans' favor.
In fact, it makes them look like petulant adolescents compared to the grown-up in the room.
Ezra:
In this speech, in fact, Obama needed to do the precise opposite of what he's best at. He needed to bring health-care reform down to earth rather than launch it into orbit. He needed to make it seem less dramatic and unknown. He needed to cast it not as change, but as improvement.
All of which he did.
Nate Silver:
I called the speech a triple, because I think it was about 10 minutes too long. Andrew Sullivan's readers call it a home run. FOX News, I'm sure, will call it a long fly-out to the warning track. The bottom line: it was a well-delivered speech, and a very, very smart speech. It will remind people of what they liked about Obama. It won't do miracles. But it will increase, perhaps substantially, the odds of meaningful health care reform passing.
Tom Schaller:
That said, Obama is trying to win an argument on its merits, on logic, and statistics and projections. In an ideal world, that sort of pragmatic rationality would be enough. But we don’t live in such a world.
Errington Thompson, MD:
As I see it, Republicans are playing some type of child’s game where they claim to support healthcare reform. I don’t see any real effort to support healthcare reform. Senator Mike Enzi is probably the best example of this. He is supposedly negotiating for a bipartisan reform bill. Just last week he told a group of supporters at a rally that he was sure that healthcare reform was going to fail. Unfortunately, Mike Enzi is a very important senator, on the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Some Republican senators have said they won’t even read the final bill. Democrats, liberals and progressives need to read the writing on the wall. If we truly want change, we’re going to have to push for it. We are going have to march for it. We are going to have to pull the rest of the country kicking and screaming to get it. This is the only way that we are going to prevent the USS Healthcare from sinking.