The Daily Background
| On eve of speech, Obama admits he didn’t outline enough for Congress on health care
by Arlen Parsa
Hate to say I told you so, but, well… This:
On the morning of a major address to Congress on health care, President Obama admitted that he had made some mistakes in the reform debate.
“I, out of an effort to give Congress the ability to do their thing and not step on their toes, probably left too much ambiguity out there, which allowed then opponents of reform to come in and to fill up the airwaves with a lot of nonsense,” Obama told ABC’s Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America.”
Referencing rumors about health care for illegal immigrants, “death panels” or a “government takeover,” he added, “Moving things through Congress is always a messy process. We’ve got five committees with jurisdiction. That means there are five different bills. I think the public wasn’t clear exactly what was what.”
Learning from the Clinton’s mistakes was smart, but he erred too much in the opposite direction in giving Congress too little guidance and things fell to pieces. Hopefully his speech tonight will hit the reset button, with a public option intact.
