Obama's Challenge to Congress: Stand and Deliver

The case was argued, heartstrings were tugged and the gauntlet was hurled in President Barack Obama's remarkable 50-minute address to the nation and a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night.

The president's speech may not convince a narrowly divided Congress to pass a bill containing all of his proposals for reforming the American health care system. It may not reduce the poisonous fog of demagoguery that characterized the national debate this summer.

But there is little doubt that his audience heard the president at the top of his considerable oratorical game. He noted the broad consensus he said exists for 80 percent of his proposals and praised Congress for its hard work, but he then turned the knife:

"(W)hat we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned.

"Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care."

Despite minor heckling from the Republican side of the aisle and rapturous applause from the Democratic side, the chamber was a cathedral of silence during seven minutes very near the end of the president's remarks.

He quoted from a letter that he said the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., longtime champion of health care reform, had written him in May, after learning that his brain cancer was terminal.

"He repeated the truth that health care is decisive for our future prosperity, but he also reminded me that 'it concerns more than material things,'" Mr. Obama said. "'What we face,' he wrote, 'is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.'"

It was a stunning peroration, an assertion that despite massive evidence to the contrary, empathy and compassion are part of the American character. He returned to the themes of last year's presidential campaign — "A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play, and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise."

All of that, and he was precisely on target about the two essentials that the final bill must contain if the health care crisis is going to be solved: It has to cover everyone and it has to control the growth of health care spending.

Mr. Obama rigorously defended "individual mandates," meaning everyone must get health insurance, and requiring businesses to contribute to the cost of covering their workers.

Mr. Obama expressed strong preference for a "public option," that is, a government-sponsored insurance plan, funded by premiums, not taxes, that would be part of an "insurance exchange" — a giant national risk pool that would be open to small businesses and individuals who buy coverage on their own. Government help would be available to make it affordable for poor individuals and for small businesses.

He properly insisted that the final bill crack down on private insurance companies that exclude pre-existing conditions and retroactively cancel coverage for those diagnosed with costly illnesses.

Mr. Obama is right on policy, but for all of his rhetorical brilliance, he still has a fight on his hands. If he can build on last night's speech, his opponents will have a bigger fight on theirs.

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