Health Care Debate

Rhetoric Used By President Obama Regarding Health Care Reform

Barack Obama is considered a great speaker. But he's not typically been great at giving this kind of nuts-and-bolts policy speech. He's good at handling grand, sweeping topics. He's better at talking about how the arc of history bends towards justice than how the provisions of health-care reform bend the curve. (White, 7-11)During the campaign, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton were both more effective policy communicators than Obama. Particularly on health care.

In this speech, in fact, Obama needed to do the precise opposite of what he's best at. He needed to bring health-care reform down to earth rather than launch it into orbit. He needed to make it seem less dramatic and unknown. He needed to cast it not as change, but as improvement.

Klein is terrific on policy (including, later in the same post, the policy specifics of this speech), but he's all wet on rhetoric (here at least). It's true that during the campaign Obama sometimes did not debate the specifics of policy with as much command of nuance as Clinton. But Obama is vastly better than Clinton -- and every other politician in America -- at articulating a strategic and conceptual framework for a set of policy specifics (often a laundry list as long as Hillary's). That's why he won the election. (Taylor, 5-8)

He did it in March 2008 while delineating the dynamics of the financial crisis: pain trickled up. He did it a few days earlier in articulating a global strategy for defanging Islamic fundamentalism: The central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was...It is not too late to prevail in Afghanistan. But we cannot prevail until we reduce our commitment in Iraq. He did it in spades in his remarkable (and it seems temporarily forgotten) speech on the economy this past April (explaining why he did not move swiftly to antionalize giant banks): Governments should practice the same principle as doctors: first do no harm. So rest assured - we will do whatever is necessary to get credit flowing again, but we will do so in ways that minimize risks to taxpayers and to the broader economy. (White, 7-11)

Where Obama really takes off is where, having built the case for a set of specific policies, he frames those policies as a continuation of the mainstream of American history, an articulation of core American values. That's where the "bend the arc of history" language comes in, generally in the peroration. It's true that at times in '08 that rhetoric was untethered from a lot of policy specifics. But it was a long campaign. Regularly, Obama got down to brass tacks.

Others who opposed Obama'S health care plan

Obama's health care proposal has also been attacked by some who oppose reform as a "government takeover" of the entire health care system.  As proof, critics point to a provision in our plan that allows the uninsured and small businesses to choose a publicly sponsored insurance option, ...