A New Tact on Health Care "Reform"

Is the Obama team signaling a new tact on the presentation of health care reform to the public?

It's clear that the strategy originally taken by the Administration of "crisis, crisis, crisis" and strict deadlines has failed. Obama, cognizant of what befell Hillary Clinton's secretive health care "reform" cabal in the early 90's, opted for a transparent approach by throwing the ball in the congressional court. Only Congress wrote up a turd that no one actually read (including Obama himself) that began to whither the instant sunlight fell upon it. The key question is: has anyone devulged who actually wrote this bill?

Instead of sitting down with his vast MAJORITY in both houses of congress and carefully crafting a thoughtful and practical bill Obama merely accepted what was thrown against the wall by congressional lobbyists and pushed hard. The more the opposition press read and reported on the small print in the House bill the further support for his health care reform bill fell.

So today I found this article "Is Health Care Talk Toxic for Cable TV" and it made me think that a major change in strategy is coming. Obviously health care is an enormously complicated issue and cable TV has no forum other than CSPAN to give it a fair hearing. After a while the blather and bickering over the "Public Option" gets the nation's clickers looking for re-runs of Gilligan's Island. People in general will tune out complicated subjects and ratings will suffer - but support for the bill suffers right along with it. (Michael Jackson's untimely death has perhaps saved Obama's health care reform from irreparable damage)

Soon there will be a new crisis, crisis, crisis real or imagined that will dominate the traditional news and health care reform will plod along with key milestones getting passed in the middle of the night. The adoring Obama press will present it on a gold plated platter without the debate and declare that a new era has begun.

Once complete it will be impossible for anyone to unwind the takeover of the health care industry.



CW