This being Labor Weekend and the livin’ is hopefully easy, it’s probably a good time to muse on the activities sure to burn the newsgathering blogosphere next week. Perhaps the biggest action domestically (if you really don’t want to think about the Taliban uptick in Afghanistan) will occur next week when President Obama will get the chance to make the case in a speech to Congress for (quietly) shifting away from a progressive notion of healthcare reform (read: nixing the public option). Supporters on the left suspect Obama’s plea to the nation will only vaguely acknowledge government’s role in healthcare delivery while stressing coming to a “common ground” in reaching reform goals.

It doesn’t get any more explicit than this; even the president’s healthcare adviser is now pushing reform from the direction of the third parties.

“I think the insurance market reforms are so deeply thought to be needed that I think the Congress would be willing to enact those apart from the increases in coverage,’’ [Nancy-Ann] DeParle said in a recent interview.

How much “common ground” can be realized when efforts at “reforming” Big Insurance were once anathema to Obama the campaigner? Looks like liberals have their answer. So now, the centrist focus on reform by Obama appears, at this point, to be more lukewarm than previously determined. The issue remains next week during Obama’s address: how much will Republicans play the public option card; and, if Obama is not really giving specifics on any plan, will the Deomcrats go it alone — forcing a partisan standoff? | LINK

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