The honeymoon for Obama is definitely over. With the economic recovery taking longer than originally forecast, failure on the part of his vice president to realize such, sagging confidence in domestic policy issues, and Republicans out for blood and ready to pounce on any imminent legislative failure — Obama faces a true test of his leadership. Either pass a reform bill in some form or take a page from the 1993 Hillary Clinton playbook.
Realizing that the second option is unthinkable, Barack Obama has some thinking to do. From the moment he predicted change as a force in his ascendancy to the nation’s highest office, he has promised the one holy grail of all Americans hungry for some sort of tangible return on that promise; something that citizens of all political stripes can agree on in a moral sense: unfettered and fair access to the most advanced healthcare in the world.
The problem is how to get there. With each passing day, the possibilities for doing so have become more elusive. Initially buffered by the relative bump in the economy from his initial $787 billion stimulus, recent upward trends in unemployment and the hint of consideration (which he flatly refuses even acknowledging) of a second government stimulus have cuased those early polling numbers to fall rather briskly — taking the confidence of many Americans and pundits alike on his ability to lead the nation out of this economic crisis with them.
Obama knows only one thing: healthcare is not only his signature issue at this point, it has to be his saving grace. Considering what happened to the balance of legislative power in the year following the Hillarycare, and with all 435 congressional and 1/3 of senate seats up for grabs in 2010, the prospects for a repeat are not unreasonable. The healthcare debate comes at a critical juncture for Obama, who faces growing criticism that his economic prescriptions are failing. The Obama administration is desperate for accomplishments on the big issues, and it doesn’t get any bigger than this.
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Originating from Saint Paul, Minnesota, [doctorpundit.com] is a weblog about the policy of healthcare and where it intersects with politics and public opinion; it is edited by Michael Douglas, MD, MBA. Welcome, and please consider my take on what is Healthcare 2.0, complemented by a few of my thoughts on my personal avocations and guilty pleasures: music, prose, and writing. Follow Doctor Pundit via RSS above.
RT @hjluks: Reputation Management - A big driver for engaging in healthcare and social media http://t.co/OFaqw04O #hcsm #hcsmca
The role of low-dose aspirin in the prevention of colorectal cancer: Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targe... http://t.co/lmbq29EZ #pharma
DOCTOR PUNDIT @ ONE YEAR | An occasional DP series from 2010 highlighting healthcare policy trends over the period from 2009-2010 in a compare/contrast format.
