Healthcare Reform Update - 28Jan10

Future of Healthcare Reform Remains Unclear After State of the Union Address

• After spending most of 2009 emphasizing that healthcare reform was his top domestic priority, President Obama gave it much less prominence in his State of the Union Address Tuesday night. He did not mention it until more than half an hour in, a sign of how unclear the bill’s future has become.
• Obama acknowledged that he had not done enough to communicate with Americans about the benefits of reform. He attributed his failure to this lack of communication and to special-interest opposition, rather than flaws in the proposal.
• The speech did not resolve differences between the House and the Senate, nor clarify the way forward.
• Healthcare was mentioned in a long list of presidential priorities, which included jobs, the economy, deficit reduction, bank regulation, education, energy production and the war in Afghanistan.
• The change of tone highlighted the political risks for Obama in spending more time pushing legislation whose fate in Congress is uncertain.
• However, Obama showed support for the reform bills, describing them as an immense improvement over the status quo. “As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we’ve proposed,” he said.
• Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/us/politics/28health.html