Obama's Health Speech a Victory for the Center: Brooks

President Obama’s health care speech was “the finest speech of his presidency,” writes David Brooks: While rhetorically appeasing liberals, it “subtly staked out ground in the center” to win over moderates, making passage “much more likely,” he opines in the New York Times. Obama was firm in creating the “Dime Standard”: No plan can add “one dime to our deficits.” Bye, House plan.

Meanwhile, the president showed he was open, in principle, to tort reform and to “capping the tax exemption on employer-provided health benefits.” After these words, he won’t easily be able to reject amendments confronting either issue. Obama also killed the public option and dumped the “soak-the-rich” tax approach to cover reform, Brooks writes. But all this doesn’t mean “this is effective health reform,” he notes. Obama “has decided to expand the current system, not fix it.”
(More David Brooks stories.)