Reading the piece, one is struck by the two strands of thinking that animated the Obama administration to push healthcare through. One the hand, they were clearly in love with the history they were making. On the other hand, they also loved the idea of deficit reduction.
In public, as Connolly notes, Obama was saying grandiloquent things about his bill. When it passed the House, for example, Obama said:
And in private, Obama was, if anything, more sweeping: "It's the greatest thing Congress has done in 50 years."
But at the same time, Obama seemed focused on healthcare as a way of reducing the deficit, telling one Democratic Congressman, "We have to do this. It is essential to bringing down the deficit." According to reporter Connolly, Obama cited estimates by the =Congressional Budget Office would soon show that the measure would reduce the deficit, while by contrast, the status quo "blows the deficit."
So which is it? Is healthcare about putting Obama in the entitlement pantheon, alongside and, or it about reducing red ink?
Obama partisans will say that it's both, of course, at the same time. We shall see.
But one sort of gets the impression that the plan is a give and a take. That is, the quantity of care, spread across 30 million or so more people, while the quality of that care.
s published a behind-the-scenes look at the healthcare battle over the last two months.
Reading the piece, one is struck by the two strands of thinking that animated the Obama administration to push healthcare through. One the hand, they were clearly in love with the history they were making. On the other hand, they also loved the idea of deficit reduction.
In public, as Connolly notes, Obama was saying grandiloquent things about his bill. When it passed the House, for example, Obama said:
And in private, Obama was, if anything, more sweeping: "It's the greatest thing Congress has done in 50 years."
But at the same time, Obama seemed focused on healthcare as a way of reducing the deficit, telling one Democratic Congressman, "We have to do this. It is essential to bringing down the deficit." According to reporter Connolly, Obama cited estimates by the =Congressional Budget Office would soon show that the measure would reduce the deficit, while by contrast, the status quo "blows the deficit."
So which is it? Is healthcare about putting Obama in the entitlement pantheon, alongside and, or it about reducing red ink?
Obama partisans will say that it's both, of course, at the same time. We shall see.
But one sort of gets the impression that the plan is a give and a take. That is, the quantity of care, spread across 30 million or so more people, while the quality of that care.