The President’s latest tool to promote healthcare reform is via radio broadcast, where he addressed Americans’ doubts over his administration’s intent, according to NBC.
“Nobody’s talking about the government administering all of health care,” said President Obama on radio host Mike Smercovish’s show. “None of the proposals coming out of the White House propose giving coverage to illegal immigrants.”
“I’m getting a little ticked off,” said one live caller, a supporter of the President. “It feels like the knees are buckling a little.”
“I guarantee you, Joe, we are going to get healthcare reform done,” the President assured.
Democrats Become Outspoken Opponents
Many liberal Democrats are angry about recent remarks from President Obama and his administration, interpreting them as compromise on the public option.
“The press got a little excited, and some folks on the left got a little excited about this. Our position hasn’t changed,” said the President.
To strengthen Democrats’ unity, the President later held a “pep-talk” town hall with activists, pointing out that they’d been “written off “this time last year.
“…cable was 24 hours a day, ‘Obama’s lost his mojo.’ Do you remember all that? There’s something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all ‘wee-wee’d’ up.”
Michael Smercovish on the White House Broadcast
Radio Host Michael Smercovish was asked by NBC’s Ann Curry
what the political fall-out would be should President Obama go ahead with reconciliation, a forceful tactic by which he needs only a simple majority to pass healthcare reform.
“I don’t think the While House wants to concede that “the nuclear option” is the only option at this juncture,” answered Smercovish. “The President said to me on my radio program yesterday they are still trying to extend the olive branch.
Curry re-posed the question asked by NY Times columnist Frank Rich, “Is Obama Punking Us?” and read an excerpt from Rich’s colleague, Paul Krugman.
“It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months of trying to appease people who can’t be appeased and who take every concession as a sign that he has rolled.”
When was asked point blank how serious the division among Democrats is, Smercovish answered.
“I think that to the Democrats it’s very important that the public option remain on the table.”
“The first question I asked of the President, yesterday, was whether Secretary Sebelius had misspoken last weekend when she suggested that the public option wasn’t necessary. What you heard him say is that this is the media in early August essentially looking for a story… I’m paraphrasing, but he wanted to make the argument to those Democrats to whom you’re referring that the public option is very much in play.”
“Now from the other side, the Republicans and the Conservatives, they see the public option as window dressing for something that will ultimately take them to a single payer system, so I also said to the President how do you respond to the mindset that in the end you want everything? You want the banks, you want the automotive industry and you want health care and his point was to say, “This didn’t begin on my watch, you know, the incursion into the banks, for example, that was a leftover from the old administration.”
 |
