Obama to Offer His Own Plan?

Marc Armbinder of The Atlantic is reporting that President Obama will be unveiling his own healthcare plan in the coming week as a way to kick start the debate back in his favor.

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One of the easy digs against Obama until this time has been that he not only had nothing to do with the various plans floating around Congress (at least three bills thus far) and, worse, that he hasn’t seemed to really know what is in any of them. Now Obama is about to offer his own plan. Some of it will be ideas already in play and others will be new.

He plans to list specific goals that any health insurance reform plan that arrives at his desk must achieve, according to Democratic strategists familiar with the plan. Some of these “goals” have already been agreed to, including new anti-discrimination restrictions on insurance companies. Others will be new, including the level of subsidies he expects to give the uninsured so they can buy into the system. Obama will also specify a “pay for” mechanism he prefers, and will specify an income level below which he does not want to see taxed. He will insist upon a mechanism to cut costs and increase competition among insurance companies — and perhaps will even specify a percentage rate — and he will say that his preferred mechanism remains a government-subsidized public health insurance option, but he will remain agnostic about whether the plan must include a robust public option. Officials won’t say whether the president intends to endorse a specific “trigger” mechanism if the competition mechanism fails, but they say he will make it clear that the final bill must contain language that increases competition.

But here are the real questions. So Obama has his own “new” plan to offer. So what? Does it have the force of law, has he found a few Congressmen or Senators to sign on, is it actual legislation of just his blather that has no force of law? What ever the case it is true that the Democrats are losing the debate thus far. If Obama wants to win the day here something will have to be done calm the fears of the electorate. Lastly, it is a bit odd that we are going to get “Obama’s plan,” now, isn’t it? After all, this whole thing has been sold since day one as the president’s policies, the president’s campaign promise, and the president’s idea. Now, though, we are going to suddenly see “his plan” unveiled? This seems to make the lie to the last 6 months of selling “his” plan, doesn’t it?

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