Obama's Health Care Speech: Experts Sound Off

Sept. 10, 2009— -- Following President Obama's speech on health care reform Wednesday night, the ABC News Medical Unit solicited comments from some of the country's leading health care policy experts. A number of them responded with their thoughts, and while more than half of the responses supported the ideas presented in the speech, many also had at least some reservations.

Some of the experts contacted were very pleased:

"No one could hear President Obama's speech and fail to be convinced by the urgency of action on health reform," said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund and a nationally recognized economist with a distinguished career in public policy and research. "He painted the need for reform in both human and economic terms…and made it clear that failure is not an option."

Dr. Henry Black, clinical professor of internal medicine at New York University, said he was "very impressed with the tone, firmness and especially the way he systematically dealt with all the accusations that have been leveled at him and the need for reform." Black further noted that he was "particularly pleased that some sort of public option was included."

Obama "added his passion to balance the passion on the other side," said Robert Field, professor of health management and policy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. "He painted himself as a centrist, who differs from those on the left and the right. ... His position on the public plan sowed the seeds of compromise. He explained the position for it but clearly indicated that he will compromise."

"I thought it was a great speech ... all in all, a wonderful performance," said Timothy Jost, a professor of law at Washington and Lee University.

While most had something positive to say, there was also some tough criticism:

Gail Wilensky, a senior fellow at Project Hope, an international health education foundation, said Obama's speech was "moving and emotional at the end but ... would have been more powerful if there had been more of that and less of some of the earlier discussion."

Wilensky also shared her thoughts on health care spending. "I strongly support the need to slow spending on Medicare as well as the rest of health care spending, but doing it by reforming the delivery system will take time and be uncertain in its path," she said. "The sure ways to get money out of Medicare is by whacking prices, and this doesn't go after inefficiency and reimbursement."