A State Of Union Challenge: Health Reform
Obama Makes His Point (frontpagemag.com)
Barack Obama is due to hold a State of the Union address tonight, in which he faces challenges winning back the public on his Health Care law.
It’s his first such address since March, when he signed the new Health Care plan into existence, yet the public seems to be separated in opinion – many still doubting his greatest legislative accomplishment. It comes at precisely the right time as the Republicans have been orchestrating the law’s downfall in great detail, even passing laws to retard Federal aid in health insurance, making sure Obama’s Health Care, although constitutional and accepted by the majority of the American people, could not be implemented. Regardless of Republican ‘revolutionary’ action, Obama may just have the edge on this one, although even his fellow ‘lefties’ will pick apart his speech alongside the conservatives.
Many claim to already know the President’s arguments for supporting the new Health Care. They say he’ll reuse the statements made by his party in past few days, more precisely, that people are already benefiting from Health Care reform and that repealing it would take away important protections from them. Experts from both left and right don’t expect Obama to spend too much time on the subject during his speech, lest he bore Congress.
It’s becoming ever clearer that conservative Americans have a problem with a socialized health system. They still fear anything that bears “social” in it’s description. There are opinions that it may actually be a more selfish reason than that, as Republicans often see the Health Care reform as a lowering of medical standards, making it affordable to everyone, hence the possibility of sharing their hospital room with a stranger, or other “despicable” compromises.
Let’s not lose hope. Obama has shown he can change public opinion, despite all the criticism he’s been getting for a while, he might be a “late bloomer”. Of course, he might not have that “Texas cowboy charisma”, but I’m sure his intellect will get him farther than a horse.11
