PRESIDENT BARACK Obama will marshal his considerable oratorical skills tonight in an attempt to salvage his embattled plan for healthcare reform.
In what will be only his second speech to a joint session of Congress (after his State of the Union address last February), the US president will attempt to regain control of a debate that went wildly against him in town hall meetings across the country after Congress went into recess at the end of July.
The White House hopes tonight’s speech will calm passions and prompt Congress to pass legislation that was supposed to be completed in the summer.
It would not be the first time Mr Obama has used rhetoric to reverse a political setback, the most dramatic example being his March 2008 “More Perfect Union” speech on race in America, which quelled criticism over remarks by his pastor, Rev Jeremiah Wright.
Mr Obama set the tone for tonight's speech when he spoke to the AFL-CIO's Labour Day picnic on Monday. Repeating chants of "Fired up!" and "Ready to go?", the president delivered what the conservative Wall Street Journalcalled a "feisty" performance. He berated Republicans for failing to come up with a viable healthcare plan of their own.
Alluding to myths that thrived about healthcare plans throughout the month of August, Mr Obama said, “I’ve got a question for all these folks who say we’re going to pull the plug on Grandma and this is all about illegal immigrants – you’ve all heard all the lies. I’ve got a question for all those folks: What are you going to do? What’s your answer? What’s your solution? And you know what? They don’t have one.”
Mr Obama’s advisers have urged him to stop wasting time debunking the myths, and deliver a concise, simple message explaining what healthcare reform is about. He promised to “build an America where health reform delivers more stability and security to every American . . . reform the system for those who have insurance and those who don’t.”
The president vowed to keep fighting for the most controversial element of healthcare reform – the “public option” which would create a government-run insurance plan to compete with private options. But he left the door open to compromise on that issue, saying, “I continue to believe that a public option within that basket of insurance choices will help improve quality and bring down costs.” A possible compromise on the public option, the “trigger”, is favoured by Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican lawmaker inclined to compromise in the “gang of six” senators on the important finance committee. Under the proposal, the public option would kick in only if private insurance companies failed to meet certain criteria such as lowering overall healthcare spending or decreasing the number of uninsured.
The Wall Street Journalsaid the trigger "ensures that the public option will arrive eventually, instead of immediately".
The healthcare debate has been noisy, nasty and sometimes violent. A 65-year-old man had his little finger bitten off at a town hall meeting in California last week. But such incidents have obscured the degree of consensus on healthcare, and which Mr Obama will emphasise tonight.
Three House committees and the Senate health committee passed draft legislation before the summer recess. All four versions have in common a requirement that every American carry medical insurance, with subsidies for people who can’t afford it, and penalties for those who fail to obtain it. Employers would be required to provide health insurance, though small firms would be exempted or given tax breaks to reduce the cost. Less well-off families would receive discounts.
New restrictions on insurance companies would prevent them refusing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions or dropping patients who fall ill. Another widespread practice known as “rescissions”, where the insurance company voids coverage on a technicality when a large claim is submitted, would also be banned.
Small businesses who cannot afford to insure their employees and the 46 million Americans who currently have no health coverage would comparison shop for coverage on a new marketplace called an “exchange” or “gateway”.