Obama sounded confident and sure of his health reform motif at Wednesday press conference and hit the right marks, I think. This is something that has been struggled with so long, and the stakes are becoming clearer. Costs sky-high, insurance companies in it for big profits, 45 million uninsured in the richest of nations, etc. Surely, some wise worker in all this, say, Barak Obama or E.J. Dionne, can see through all the confusions and the naysayers and get this done. It would be a great step in creating a nation with actual common interests that were not military, not infrastructure per se, but an actual shared condition of the body in question, the human body with its 'thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to' to quote the Dane, Hamlet. Here is the end of Dionne's article today, July 23, in the WaPo. BP

Indeed, some opponents of reform are playing both sides of the street, arguing for cost containment while warning that reform would limit "freedom of choice."

It was entirely predictable that we would have this cacophony once the debate was joined in earnest and once citizen-consumers began counting up the costs and benefits of reform.

But the only choice that matters is whether we want to cover all Americans and begin the multiyear task of fixing the health system, or whether we prefer, once again, to use the details as an excuse for evading what we know must be done someday.

The politics of escape uses difficulties as an excuse for inertia. The politics of tenacity accepts that some problems are excruciatingly difficult and resolves to deal with them anyway. The crisis in Washington arises because that choice is upon us.

E.J. Dionne
Washington Post
7-23-09