It's a very big week for health care reform, as President Obama addresses the American Medical Association and congressional committees delve into the details of legislative proposals.
The debate, however, is no long on whether health care reform will be done. The debate is only on the role of government as a potential provider of health care.
Robert Reich: "Wednesday the American Medical Association came out against a public option for health care. The President has reaffirmed his support for it. The next weeks will show what Obama is made of -- whether he's willing and able to take on the most formidable lobbying coalition he has faced so far on an issue that will define his presidency."
On CNN yesterday, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius noted the opposition is different this time: "The situation has changed. The good news is, a lot of the people who opposed not only the plan that Harry Truman put forward, and he did relentlessly during his administration, and what Bill Clinton had on the table. They were opponents. They're now at the table."
Meanwhile, CQ Politics reports health care coverage -- and how to pay for it -- dominated the Sunday talk shows, with key Senate leaders expounding on a variety of initiatives.
In his weekly radio address,
President Obama outlined a series of Medicare and Medicaid cuts he said
would slice $313 billion in payments over 10 years so the savings could
be applied toward overhauling the health system.
The cuts come on top of Medicare and Medicaid revisions Obama
requested earlier this year in his fiscal 2010 budget proposal;
together with those cuts the White House is now proposing a total of
$622 billion in Medicare and Medicaid revisions over 10 years, most of
it from Medicare.
Playbook notes "the $900 billion in savings/cuts
the White House has proposed is a very big deal. It makes it harder to
mischaracterize this as a big-government budget-buster, and forces the
Republicans to do something or only be on the side of nothing, which
the American people don't want."
Coming next: Obama's health care push will continue next week with a primetime event
at the White House, with ABC's Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer set to
moderate a nationally televised event called "Questions for the
President: Prescription for America."
Chart of the day: Health care stock holdings by members of Congress.
