Analyzing President Obama’s Joint Congressional Address Regarding Healthcare

1. “The plan I’m announcing tonight will meet 3 basic goals. It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance; it will provide insurance for those who don’t; and it will slow the growth of healthcare costs for our families, our businesses, and our governments.”

I think this may be the most specific thing Obama says in the entire speech. Though he makes many promises of badly needed change, he still remains very general in everything he touches on. I think most of the public’s fear of the bill has stemmed from the lack of solid information we have received, and from the resulting fear-mongering tactics stemming from those areas of question.

2. “Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage based on preexisting conditions.”

I have never understood why insurance companies were allowed to do things like that in the first place. I hope this statement is true if the bill passes, especially since so much information is now increasingly available to the public about each individual, even down to conditions the individual may be predisposed to according to their DNA.

3.. “There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

Rep. Representative Joe Wilson: “You lie!”

The day after the speech, I read in a Yahoo news article that Wilson had shouted this. Rewinding a recording of the speech to find the moment at which this happens, I observed a verbal uproar from Congress, both immediately before and immediately after the outburst. The crowd reacted loudly, clearly offended by the lack of respect Congressman Wilson showed. President Obama paused for a moment, reiterated that the claim was “not true,” and continued with his speech. The incident seems a good example of how the entire debate has been so far: while Obama (representing Democrats) calmly gives a general but promising description of the bill, Wilson (representing Republicans) reacts with inappropriate outrage and contempt. I’m sure that while Democrats will see this as yet another crazy outburst, Republicans will see it as a sign of the health-care apocalypse.

I believe, first of all, that President Obama is a moving orator. He has the posture and voice of a leader, and in my first viewing of his speech I was so taken in by how he was speaking that I almost missed what he was actually saying entirely. Upon later viewings, however, I noticed more about his message, and how he was getting it across. While he did touch on a lot of information many people probably needed to hear (like the dispelling of rumors about coverage for immigrants and death panels), he also remained very general with everything he was saying. I did appreciate his assertion that America does not need to start over with a healthcare bill, but instead build on the one already in progress with as much bipartisan participation as possible. His attitude is very liberal and left-wing, which I think scares people even though that attitude was the reason many voted for him in the first place. Government tends to be hard to change in major ways, especially in such a short amount of time, which is why I think so many politicians used to doing things a certain way are reacting so badly to Obama’s refusal to significantly temper his opinions or what he stands for, at least on this issue. No matter what each side thinks or believes of him, whether his ideas will actually work remains to be seen. Until a final bill is more fleshed out, no one can know what will ultimately be in it. However, of the claims Obama presented in the speech, I sincerely hope that every one is true, because we certainly need a change for the better.