In a plain-spoken, at times tough, and masterful address to a joint
session of congress, President Obama spoke in pragmatic and moral terms
about the importance of healthcare reform as a test of our nation's
character. He called for sweeping action, including most notably
outlawing insurance companies from denying coverage because of
preexisting conditions. Security and stability was a refrain. A call to
end children's games was an almost biblical subtext as the President
spoke powerfully of the need to move beyond the ugly circus of August.
"The time for bickering is over. Games are over."
The speech still had a bipartisan flavor, but with a progressive spine.
On the imperative of a public option, Obama did not fully satisfy.
The insurance exchange idea confused more than it clarified in
explaining the role of the public option. Why will it take four years?
Essentially, it's a compromise because Congress doesn't have the guts to
raise money to do it more quickly. There may be some benefits up front,
but there are still more questions than answers. What is clear is that
the fight must still be waged to push through a public option --already
a part of four of the five bills in Congress--if we're to get an
essential component of genuine and effective healthcare reform. After
all, the public option is already a pragmatic all-American compromise
(choice and competition). Medicare for All--or single-payer-was never on
the table.
Obama likes to say that the perfect is the enemy of the good. But what
if the weak is the enemy of the good? And the shout-outs to the left
were at times patronizing--as if he had to do triangulation 2.0
Still, Obama's invocation of history was powerful. When he pointed
out that Congressman Dingell's father had proposed very similar
legislation in 1943 it was great symbolism and great politics. In
invoking the great reform Presidents--Roosevelt and Johnson--and the
battles they waged against reactionary lobbies in fighting for universal
health care, Obama placed himself in the American pantheon.
"I am not the first person to take up the cause of health care but I am
determined to be the last."
Despite the days of right wing rage, and the metastasizing lies and
misinformation, Obama said, perhaps with Machiavellian intention, that
he would still seek common ground in the weeks ahead. "But, know this,"
Obama insisted. "I will not waste time with those whose calculation is
that it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it." And in
that masterful phrase, he placed the burden on those who would seek to
cripple, or kill, healthcare reform to damage his young presidency.
Obama was most feisty in saying " instead of honest debate, we've seen
scare tactics," and his "call out"of those (especially those who are
spooking seniors) who would misrepresent his plan.
And then there were those male, pale and stale Republicans. South
Carolina Representative Joe Wilson's shout in the hall of "liar" showed
that the megaphones of misinformation are not isolated to the delusional
FOX studios of Glenn Beck or the padded radio chamber of Rush Limbaugh.
Obama rightly called the GOP out for their hypocrisy in defending
Medicare, a program they have labored hard to cripple.
There was much pragmatic talk--of security and stability and
bending the curve and deficit neutrality and finding savings within
existing Medicare system. But it was when Obama spoke of Senator
Kennedy and the larger moral imperative of healthcare reform that this
became a great speech. One for the history books, in fact. Obama
reminded us that this reform was, as Kennedy believed, "the great
unfinished business of our society." That it is a "moral issue" about
the fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our
country. It is about the human condition, about the history of our
progress of our nation.
In many ways, it was Obama's fullest, most eloquent and formal defense
of liberalism and the clearest exposition of his view of government's
role. It was not the full-fledged antidote to Reagan's decades of
government-is-the-problem conservative narrative. Yet Obama spoke
eloquently of a new and progressive role for government. We must build
on it.
There is work ahead to fulfill the promise of shaping a more humane and
healthier future. But on the evening of September 9th, eight years
after President George W. Bush spoke to a joint session of Congress,
President Obama has set us on a path we must seize in the critical days
and weeks ahead.
