I am a very vocal critic of the way that the President and his advisers have handled the health care reform debate and in general his relationship to his constituents and his political base. I am still a skeptic and I even postulated that his speech would be ineffective.
I have to say that the President's speech tonight gives me cause for hope that he can pull some form of reform package through. My concerns remain that an effective public option will be missing from that package. In fact I differ with the President on his framing of the purpose of a public option. I do believe our system private insurance is irretrievably broken and should be replaced. Most progressives viewed the Public Option as the key means to unravel the grip of the predatory insurance companies on our lives.
I commend the President on couching the features of "his plan" in a much clearer and more succinct way than in previous months when there wasn't really a White House backed plan to begin with. I also commend the President for his framing of the debate and his strong use of the historical perspective. I think the polls have shown that he has stopped for the moment the momentum that the otherside had been gaining.
The question remains, will the Republican's show of gross incivility within the Chamber of the Congress show them for the boors they are or will they go back to their drumbeat of freakish name calling and gross memes as they did throughout August.
If the game is to win the hearts and minds of independents then there is a strong chance that the Republicans have doomed themselves to irrelevancy by their behavior. It seems suddenly all of the lies and bad behavior of town halls and death panels and the like have been instantly crystallized for the American people. The President looks like the one that is pulling for the American People. The Republicans look like petulant school boys sulking because they just got bested in the sports contest. It was amazing to watch their behavior. Our thanks to Rep. Joe Wilson (R) SC for proving this point.
I do hope that the President follows through on his promise to call them out. It is long over due.
As a progressive I am likely to be disappointed with what comes out and I don't relish the prospect that our tax dollars will be potentially used to subsidize premiums and profits for private insurance companies. But the President did explain a matrix of solutions that will seem to create something workable and will address 3 of the critical criteria for real health care reform. Universal access (no exclusions), portability, and (in some fashion) affordability. I will accept that those three features would be a win for the American people. I still hold strong reservations that the over all cost containment will not be adequate and with the mandates could either create hardships for people or will cost the tax payer unnecessarily.
Lastly, I think the President should set an aggressive timetable for the adoption of this legislation say before October 15th. This will require the Republicans to either get onboard or get out of the way.