In his speech tonight, the president introduced a new number in the health care debate. Remember all those statements from Democrats, including Barack Obama himself, that 47 million Americans are without health insurance? That's no longer the operative number. "There are now more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage," the president said in tonight's speech.
But on August 10, at a town hall meeting, Obama referred to the "46, 47 million people without health insurance in our country-- And on July 23, he said, "This is not just about the 47 million Americans who don't have any health insurance at all""
What's the difference? Obama appears to be choosing his words carefully. There is a difference between Americans who "cannot get coverage" and Americans who "don't have any health insurance at all." The interesting question is why Obama has chosen to downgrade the number from 47 million to 30 million. Look for Democrats to begin using the new figure in making the case for Obamacare. [emphasis added]
It could be argued that this is insignificant and Obama won't have to worry about this impacting whether Congress passes reform or not. However, it's not that they are preventing reform from passing but that with every inch they manage to get Obama to give them reform gets worse.
When Obama shifts his rhetoric to make it more difficult for Republicans to rebut his arguments, he makes it harder for his administration, Democrats, and other Americans to make the moral argument that all Americans are entitled to health care.
Obama's mistake is that he is trying to do all Americans a favor by reforming a service in America that is rife with all the symptoms that come from America's free market system. But, he places the preservation of private health insurance above ensuring that reform establishes a system where saving choice, money, time, and lives is of the utmost importance.
In trying to do both, he is finding it difficult to grapple with Republican arguments against government being involved in health care. And, each time he minimizes the importance of the "public option , each time he suggests that not many Americans will really use it, Republicans will wonder if the spending and costs are really worth it.
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