Obama Healthcare Speech

I thought the events occurring at the U.S. Capitol last night served as an insightful microcosm for the entire debate on healthcare.

• On the one hand, you had the President articulating the need for reform of the system both from an economic and moral perspective. He used facts, re-capped history, declared principles, gave reasons why reform is needed, tied in how a better healthcare system will help the greater economy, provided an overview of what reform would and would not be, dispelled falsehoods and rumors, challenged Congress to act and appealed to a greater sense of our nation's well-being. This has been the approach of those leading the healthcare reform debate so far, but much more compelling coming from Obama himself.

• And on the other hand, you had an emotional outburst from a Republican Congressman from South Carolina shouting at the President and calling him a liar during the speech. And the rest of the Republicans (and a few Democrats too to be fair) who are against reforming the healthcare system? Well, they sat on their hands most of the speech in stony silent support of the current system we have today. Histrionics, unsubstantiated assertions, whipping up fear and stubbornness have been the primary tactics for those opposed to reform, and we saw that in spades last night too.

To summarize: Facts, reason and a moral appeal by Obama. "You lie!" shouted from the other side...and on an issue that Obama was not lying or even shading the truth about. That's where we're at in this big debate.

Emotion usually wins the day, so up to now the "you lie" stuff has been pretty effective. Perhaps the addition of the moral component by Obama will balance things out or bring a much needed reality check to the whole process. We shall see.