Some wonder if his speech will be a "game changer."
The game has changed alright, and now we have up to 37 Democrats, who took a beating at townhalls across the country, who are not on board with Obamacare in it's current form, nor the public option.
It is doubtful, yet another Obama speech can turn this around, people are tired of hearing from him, over and over again and the more he does it, the more some just tune him out and as for it changing the game, the concerns citizens have shown and the level of participation in the August townhalls, show the public highly energized against Obamacare, the cost and the public option, and Obama trying to steamroll them in the first place, before August, is one of the reasons his approval numbers have sunk so low, so fast.
Some also wonder if he is going to set some type of deadline for Congress and the Senate in getting some type of health reform passed, with or without the public option.
Didn't he already try that before the August vacation for Congress? Didn't work out so well then, doubt it will now.
According to The Hill, the political momentum has turned sharply against the public option.
Political momentum appeared to swing sharply against the public health insurance option prized by liberals Tuesday, on the eve of President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress. Democratic leaders in the House and Senate on Tuesday signaled they are increasingly willing to pass healthcare reform without a public insurance option, even while Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) again insisted it must be included in a House healthcare bill.
Obama supporter and supporter, Camille Pagglia, takes Democrats to the woodshed, calling them out and already blaming Pelosi for Obama not winning reelection.
What a difference a month makes! When my last controversial column posted on Salon in the second week of August, most Democrats seemed frozen in suspended animation, not daring to criticize the Obama administration's bungling of healthcare reform lest it give aid and comfort to the GOP. Well, that ice dam sure broke with a roar. Dissident Democrats found their voices, and by late August even the liberal lemmings of the mainstream media, from CBS to CNN, had drastically altered their tone of reportage, from priggish disdain of the town hall insurgency to frank admission of serious problems in the healthcare bills as well as of Obama's declining national support.
But this tonic dose of truth-telling may be too little too late. As an Obama supporter and contributor, I am outraged at the slowness with which the standing army of Democratic consultants and commentators publicly expressed discontent with the administration's strategic missteps this year. I suspect there had been private grumbling all along, but the media warhorses failed to speak out when they should have -- from week one after the inauguration, when Obama went flat as a rug in letting Congress pass that obscenely bloated stimulus package. Had more Democrats protested, the administration would have felt less arrogantly emboldened to jam through a cap-and-trade bill whose costs have made it virtually impossible for an alarmed public to accept the gargantuan expenses of national healthcare reform. (Who is naive enough to believe that Obama's plan would be deficit-neutral? Or that major cuts could be achieved without drastic rationing?)
By foolishly trying to reduce all objections to healthcare reform to the malevolence of obstructionist Republicans, Democrats have managed to destroy the national coalition that elected Obama and that is unlikely to be repaired. If Obama fails to win reelection, let the blame be first laid at the door of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who at a pivotal point threw gasoline on the flames by comparing angry American citizens to Nazis. It is theoretically possible that Obama could turn the situation around with a strong speech on healthcare to Congress this week, but after a summer of grisly hemorrhaging, too much damage has been done. At this point, Democrats' main hope for the 2012 presidential election is that Republicans nominate another hopelessly feeble candidate. Given the GOP's facility for shooting itself in the foot, that may well happen.
Wall Street Journal starts with one of the other options in Obamacare to which people are weary of as well as the constitutionality of such a measure being questioned already.
White House officials say the president will detail what he wants in the health-care overhaul, as well as say he is open to better ideas on a government plan if lawmakers have them.
Democratic plans call for requiring most Americans to carry health insurance. Failure to comply could cost families as much as $3,800 a year, according to a new Senate proposal.
The best guess at how Obama will handle his 29th healthcare speech comes from The Politico, he will push the public option, but knowing it is a loser from the get-go, he will "hedge."
President Barack Obama plans to give a strong endorsement of a public option – or government health-insurance plan – in his remarks to Congress on Wednesday night but will stop short of an ultimatum, leaving wiggle room for negotiation as the bill moves through Congress, according to sources familiar with his remarks.
In a speech meant to reset debate on the centerpiece of his first-term agenda, Obama can be expected to use language similar to his Labor Day remarks in Cincinnati, where he said: “I continue to believe that a public option within that basket of insurance choices will help improve quality and bring down costs."
Anxious to navigate treacherous divides in the Senate, the president will stop short of drawing a line in the sand, as many liberal House Democrats want. He will not demand that a public option must be in any reform bill he signs, the sources said.
Reaching out to Republicans and independents, the president will acknowledge a problem with medical malpractice litigation, suggesting that topic can be included in the debate on an overall reform package.
Last in this little linkfest, but not least, because it is already causing an upraor in the blogosphere, as does anything Sarah Palin does, Wall Street Journal publishes another Palin piece called "Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care ."
Enjoy your reading and remember from yesterday:
Here is a partial list, via The Hill, of the 23 moderate Democrats, mostly from red states and states in the south, that are saying they will vote against Obamacare.John Adler (N.J.), Jason Altmire (Pa.), John Barrow (Ga.), Dan Boren (Okla.) Rick Boucher (Va.), Allen Boyd (Fla.), Bobby Bright (Ala.), Travis Childers (Miss.), Jim Costa (Calif.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Parker Griffith (Ala.), Frank Kratovil (Md.), Betsy Markey (Colo.) Eric Massa (N.Y.), Jim Matheson (Utah), Charlie Melancon (La.), Walt Minnick (Idaho), Tom Perriello (Va.), Earl Pomeroy (N.D.), Heath Shuler (N.C.), Bart Stupak (Mich.), John Tanner (Tenn.), Gene Taylor (Miss.)
If your Representative is listed, make sure they continue to hear from you, making it clear you are one of the 82 percent that will hold them accountable.
Names are linked to their contact page, what are you waiting for, no time like the present.
