What Did the President Mean? What’s the Strategy?
EmailPresident Obama apparently told George Stephanopoulos more than he was supposed to about the strategy for health care reform in today’s interview.
“I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on,” the president said. “We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don’t, then our budgets are going to blow up and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance for their families. Those are the core, some of the core elements of this bill.”
Mr. Obama also suggested that the bill contains “some things…that people don’t like and legitimately don’t like.” Such as, for example, any “carve out for just one or two particular groups or interests” which the president suggested could be removed – or, as he described it, “clearing out some of that under brush…”
So what does that mean?
What’s the strategy?
Is the other legislation dead?
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters only that “we are working through the best way forward as the President continues his commitment to get health care reform done.”
Gibbs said he didn’t “want to get into, I guess, delineating, except to say there are a lot of different paths forward. And I think we’ll get an opportunity in the coming hours and days to know exactly what that path is. But I think we mentioned yesterday health care continues to be a priority of the President’s. It was yesterday, it was a year ago, and it continues today.”
Then this evening came this elucidating statement from White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, which I can imagine him showing to his colleagues, giggling, before posting.
“On Next Steps for Health Reform,” reads his blog.
“Right now there are a lot of discussions going on about the best path forward,” Pfeiffer wrote. “But let’s be clear that the President’s preference is to pass a bill that meets the principles he laid out months ago: more stability and security for those who have insurance, affordable coverage options for those who don’t, and lower costs for families, businesses, and governments.”
Ah, yes.
The best part of that is the “let’s be clear.”
-jpt
Santorum: Money Will Not Defeat Obama, Ideas Will 
Rick Santorum's Full Speech at CPAC 2012
Bump bump go unions under the bus.
Posted by: david | January 20, 2010, 7:11 pm 7:11 pm
Mr. Obama reminds me of my previous boss – he always ask the team for opinions, never really contribute any real ideas. Well Mr. boss, you’re supposed to be leading us, not us leading you and you leading only in name.
Posted by: young_voter | January 20, 2010, 7:16 pm 7:16 pm
SCOTT BROWN’S WIN COULD BE THE BEST THING TO HAPPEN TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY THIS YEAR. SAD THING IS MOST ON THE LEFT DON”T HAVE A CLUE AS TO WHY.
Posted by: Manitu | January 20, 2010, 7:17 pm 7:17 pm
What did Obama mean when he said the anger was not just about the last year, but about the last eight years? When is he counting from?
Posted by: Mark | January 20, 2010, 7:21 pm 7:21 pm
Dems pretty much blame the loss in MA on Obama NOT being forceful enough in pushing his agenda. I hope that they keep that excuse going all the way through until Nov. Talk about being in DENIAL!!
Posted by: Tom Barnow | January 20, 2010, 7:22 pm 7:22 pm
Anger and frustration carried over from the last 8 years? Can the Obama et al. ever stop blaming Bush? When they win, they blame Bush, now when they lose they blame Bush. These people need a shrink.
Posted by: EPU | January 20, 2010, 7:45 pm 7:45 pm
Scott Brown’s election is Bush’s fault .
Posted by: nat turner | January 20, 2010, 7:50 pm 7:50 pm
tierra – Is that supposed to be funny? Do you know ANYTHING about this man other than he is a Republican?
Posted by: ellsbells930 | January 20, 2010, 8:26 pm 8:26 pm
LMAO this piece of crap….. blame everyone but me Obama, is sickening, he would throw his grandmother under the bus if she were alive..
Posted by: another crisis, another photo-op | January 20, 2010, 8:51 pm 8:51 pm
Obama needs to stop acting like a Republican. Health care ‘reform’ is just a way to cut 500 billion from Medicare and to force everybody to buy private health insurance under IRS penalty. Furthermore, the Democrats keep throwing women under the bus! Women’s health and reproductive issues are always bargained away. And the Democratic pro-choice women reps keep going along with it! There was no reason to believe that Coakley would have stood up for women.
Many Democrats just stayed home and that’s why Brown won.
Posted by: Bubbles | January 20, 2010, 8:57 pm 8:57 pm
Obama is not a president…a leader. I will not vote for him again. The MA election was because the dems argue amongst themselves and do not acheive anything. How can the public like this bill when the dems themselves don’t like it…for 9 months in public view yet. Have the discipline to govern folks. Obama resign. Bring in Biden! I never envisioned a one year rule when we won just 14 months ago. It’s more than sad. The republicans actually won by staying disciplined in their message. Unbeliveable!!!!!!
Posted by: Carl | January 20, 2010, 9:07 pm 9:07 pm
Let me get this straight. The Republicans landed us in the numerous messes our country is trying to clean up but they are the ones with the answers? I think not.
Let’s divide health care reform into two separate issues. One is reforming the way our country administers health care…using computers to ensure more accurate patient records, making sure we will have enough doctors, nurses,etc. for the soon to be elderly baby boomers, etc. The second part is health INSURANCE reform, so insurance companies can’t drop you when you are ill, to make sure policies have strong minimum coverages, to provide affordable insurance for all, (notice that isn’t free insurance, but affordable) and to give a website where people can easily compare plans to buy the best for their money.
To follow the Republican plan is to change nothing, just like the insurance companies want. To follow the Republican plan is deny that the lack of affordable insurance is breaking families budgets and leaving more folks bankrupt after serious illness from uncovered medical expenses. To follow the Republican plan is to deny the economic effect on business, making those responsible businesses that provide insurance to their employees at an economic disadvantage when competing with domestic or foreign companies that don’t provide insurance for their workers.
Don’t be brainwashed by the insurance companies ads and lobbyists.
Posted by: Lydia | January 20, 2010, 9:42 pm 9:42 pm
Lydia, this is about much more than healthcare. The economy has not improved. The deficit has grown. Corruption with backroom deals are obvious. Most of us feel less safe today than we did before he took office.
Posted by: Zeke | January 20, 2010, 9:57 pm 9:57 pm
Obama is plunging ahead, other Democrat careerists be damned. Not that I have a problem with that. They are growed adults and they placed their bets on the messiah. After so much blind obedience they are caught between Barack and the voters—>who as it turns out have more good sense than a DC full of politicos.
Posted by: bluecollarbytes | January 20, 2010, 10:19 pm 10:19 pm
-To follow the Republican plan is to change nothing, just like the insurance companies want. To follow the Republican plan is deny that the lack of affordable insurance is breaking families budgets and leaving more folks bankrupt after serious illness from uncovered medical expenses. To follow the Republican plan is to deny the economic effect on business, making those responsible businesses that provide insurance to their employees at an economic disadvantage when competing with domestic or foreign companies that don’t provide insurance for their workers.
Don’t be brainwashed by the insurance companies ads and lobbyists.-
Nothing more taxes can’t fix! And less mammograms and more death panels.
Posted by: Barry | January 20, 2010, 10:41 pm 10:41 pm
“Point out the lies. Almost every word from the man’s mouth.”
Excise taxes aren’t taxes…The debates will be on C-SPAN…
Posted by: Page 19 | January 20, 2010, 10:43 pm 10:43 pm
Point out the lies. Almost every word from the man’s mouth.
Posted by: tierra |
Nonsense. Just more smears and lies.
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | January 20, 2010, 10:49 pm 10:49 pm
“Read my Lips, there will be no more new taxes” – George Bush Sr.
“We will bring smaller government, decrease the deficit and reduce the national debt” – George Bush Jr.
The impeccable record of honesty and competence from the Republican party.
Posted by: tierra | January 20, 2010, 10:51 pm 10:51 pm
“Read my Lips, there will be no more new taxes” – George Bush Sr.
“We will bring smaller government, decrease the deficit and reduce the national debt” – George Bush Jr.
The impeccable record of honesty and competence from the Republican party.
______________________________
The great thing is the Republicans repeat the same lies every time, never deliver . . . . and then expect people will still believe them. Gosh.
Posted by: tierra | January 20, 2010, 10:53 pm 10:53 pm
“And my daughters are available.”
Scott Brown’s words on NATIONAL television upon being elected – not mine.
Posted by: tierra | January 20, 2010, 10:55 pm 10:55 pm
-The great thing is the Republicans repeat the same lies every time, never deliver . . . . and then expect people will still believe them. Gosh.-
So we can expect C-SPAN filming any day now!
Posted by: Finally | January 20, 2010, 10:56 pm 10:56 pm
So we can expect C-SPAN filming any day now!
_________________________________
There are hours and hours of health insurance reform coverage on C-SPAN including committees, mark-ups, both bills, etc.
And – that is nowhere in the league of the phony Republican promises to deliver ‘smaller government’. They’ve NEVER done that!
And yet they repeat the same lies.
Posted by: tierra | January 20, 2010, 10:59 pm 10:59 pm
And – that is nowhere in the league of the phony Republican promises to deliver ‘smaller government’. They’ve NEVER done that!—
So lying is OK? Great? Not that I lied…
Posted by: Timmy G. | January 20, 2010, 11:04 pm 11:04 pm
Read Mao and you’ll know what base
he will put in place…
Posted by: Reilly | January 20, 2010, 11:44 pm 11:44 pm
Say, where are the examples of Scott Brown smearing Coakley? Where are the examples of McCain smearing Obama? Come on tierra-you still have not proven your allegation about Republican campaigns smearing their opponents.You seem to be doing most of the smearing of people with whom you don’t agree with politically.Perhaps you are happy with the current secret horse trading going on with the health bill.It is not transparent right now.How can you justify the current secret process?
Posted by: Nephron | January 20, 2010, 11:46 pm 11:46 pm
“Read my Lips, there will be no more new taxes” – George Bush Sr.
“We will bring smaller government, decrease the deficit and reduce the national debt” – George Bush Jr.
The impeccable record of honesty and competence from the Republican party.
______________________________
The great thing is the Republicans repeat the same lies every time, never deliver . . . . and then expect people will still believe them. Gosh.
Posted by: tierra | January 20, 2010, 11:46 pm 11:46 pm
Come on tierra-you still have not proven your allegation about Republican campaigns smearing their opponents
_________________________________
Nephron from day one the right wing and the Republicans have been smearing Obama as a Muslim, a communist, a foreigner, anti-American, a terrorist, a buddy of terrorist, a terrorist sympathizer, a thug . . . the list goes on and on.
It was a deliberate smear campaign orchestrated by the right to try to demonize Obama – a fear and smear campaign.
Are you really so stupid you’ve missed this?
Posted by: tierra | January 20, 2010, 11:49 pm 11:49 pm
Many of us really don’t care what the president is strategizing next and we really don’t want to see more interviews and speeches from him. Obama armchair QB’s EVERYTHING and the willing accomplices in the media are much too willing to oblige his vanity.
This is Obama and the media’s attempt to silence a victory plain and simple. And the more we see of Obama the more sickened people will vote out the Democrats. Trying to take away the people’s momentum just proves Obama et al.’s desperation for power.
Because to Democrats, their one true love is power – it is all they savor.
Posted by: EPU | January 21, 2010, 12:24 am 12:24 am
“It’s the typical right wing Republican fear and smear campaign”
Of course it is…
Today Robert Gibbs dismissed the sparks at the Specter-Sebelius health care town hall as manufactured outrage, claiming “the Brooks Brothers brigade . . . appears to have rented a similar bus and are appearing at town hall events throughout the country.” While yes, some of those protestors can be accused of being fashion-forward (and others just don’t care), it’s strange that Gibbs would analogize wearing that particular label with being inauthentic.
Perhaps he doesn’t recall that Brooks Brothers had a press release earlier this year praising Obama for wearing one of their suits during his own inauguration. (h/t Amanda Carpenter)
“In addition to President Lincoln, Brooks Brothers has an illustrious list of presidential patrons. Ulysses S. Grant, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt wore Brooks Brothers when they took their oaths of office, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, and William J. Clinton and George W. Bush also wore Brooks Brothers at various public and private occasions throughout their tenures in office. President Barack Obama wore a Brooks Brothers coat along with a cashmere scarf and gloves on the occasion of his inauguration on January 20, 2009.”
Why, Barry? Why?
Posted by: Cuff Links | January 21, 2010, 12:29 am 12:29 am
Today Robert Gibbs dismissed the sparks at the Specter-Sebelius health care town hall as manufactured outrage, claiming “the Brooks Brothers brigade . . .
___________________________________
“Brooks Brothers” – that is so harsh!
Especially when compared with the Obama is a Nazi signs at the rallies, the screams of ‘terrorist!’, the death panels, kill Granny, the comparison of the health insurance bill to the Holocaust, the accusations against his wife, he’s not a Christian, Muslim, a communist, a foreigner, anti-American, a terrorist, a buddy of terrorist, a terrorist sympathizer, a thug . . . we’ve heard them all – repeatedly.
Posted by: tierra | January 21, 2010, 12:33 am 12:33 am
Posted by: tierra | Jan 21, 2010 12:33:27 AM
Great, the WH got caught up on what people wear. That’s important.
Posted by: Windsor | January 21, 2010, 12:40 am 12:40 am
Okay, and wage wars amongst ourselves isn’t going to help either.
Before you start slinging mud on anyone sit back and look very carefully at what’s going on in the background.
Now, I’ll admit that George W did not keep ALL the promises he made. But Obama also said taxes would not go up and everything has gone up! Not only that but he’s signed a bill stating it is illegal to plant gardens for you and your family along with many other nonsensical things.
Be that as it may the one thing this has done is to divide us, as people, friends, neighbors, and most importantly a Nation!
Healthcare reform is important. But, did he not explain on national t.v. ( if you were listening) that now you can commit assisted suicide if that is what you want? Isn’t that a form of genocide since it was put in to replace the retirees?
I know I heard that and read that statement.
And no I’m not a right wing… I vote my conscious and my mind.
Posted by: turtleb | January 21, 2010, 4:57 am 4:57 am
turtleb: it is an objective fact that, to date, there has been no tax increase by the Federal government during the time Obama has been President – not so much as one. In fact, the only change to the tax code he DID make was to cut taxes for the middle bracket.
Posted by: Lon | January 21, 2010, 7:03 am 7:03 am
According to Obama, Scott Brown, a Republican, was swept into office because of the eight years of Bush. Huh? Talk about circular logic. lol
Posted by: Sigmonde | January 21, 2010, 7:27 am 7:27 am
Talk about circular logic. lol
Posted by: Sigmonde | Jan 21, 2010 7:27:41 AM
You definitely have to talk about circular logic when you’re talking about Republicans right-leaning “independents”– its part of the package.
Posted by: There is no Planet B | January 21, 2010, 9:52 am 9:52 am
=== Come on tierra-you still have not proven your allegation about Republican campaigns smearing their opponents.===
I’m still waiting for her to provide the alleged quotes that Bush and Cheney called opponents traitors. So good luck with her providing you proof of any allegation she has made.
Posted by: Axey | January 21, 2010, 10:09 am 10:09 am
turtleb: it is an objective fact that, to date, there has been no tax increase by the Federal government during the time Obama has been President – not so much as one. In fact, the only change to the tax code he DID make was to cut taxes for the middle bracket.
Posted by: Lon | Jan 21, 2010 7:03:33 AM
From AP
The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama’s promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.
Posted by: 'Un-American' | January 21, 2010, 2:29 pm 2:29 pm
I’m still waiting for her to provide the alleged quotes that Bush and Cheney called opponents traitors.
Posted by: Axey | Jan 21, 2010 10:09:42 AM
____________________________________
You would be naive to think these types of accusations would be voiced by the top political figures. These messages are delivered by hatchet men and political flaks, by the right wing media stooges . .. or by secondary players. Stand by, I’ll bring you some examples.
Posted by: tierra | January 21, 2010, 4:22 pm 4:22 pm
Using the terms to” give comfort” and the “enemy” in the same phrase has no conceivable objective other than to invoke accusations of treason. The Constitution’s definition of “treason” is exactly that — giving “Aid and Comfort” to the enemy.
And how many times did we hear that. If you opposed the war in Iraq you were ‘giving comfort to the enemy’.
Posted by: tierra | January 21, 2010, 4:24 pm 4:24 pm
What a stuff of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious experience regarding unexpected feelings.
Posted by: Chase Diehl | February 1, 2012, 1:18 pm 1:18 pm