Two telling statements:
- "Nowhere has there been a bigger gap between the perceptions of compromise and the realities of compromise than in the health-care bill."
- "Every single criteria for reform I put forward is in this bill."
Together, he said, these bills, many of which are highly popular among his party’s left wing, "will make life better for many Americans." On taking office in the midst of a severe financial crisis, Obama, a former U.S. senator whose senior staff includes many Hill veterans, settled on a legislative strategy that departed from those of his predecessors.
He decided that, rather than pursue big pieces of legislation one at a time, his administration would seek health-care reform, a cap-and-trade bill, financial reform legislation and other measures simultaneously.
"In some ways, we just didn’t have an option," Obama said. "Because of the financial crisis, we had to make a series of decisions that, back in 2007 when my presidential campaign began, were not at the top of our list."
"What I thought was very important not to do was further delay work on some of the big-ticket items that I had been elected to achieve and that were critical for our long-term economic growth," he continued.
Obama said he "could have put off" health-care reform, adding that "there are some people who would say that wouldn’t be such a bad thing — the opponents of reform."
But he said delaying on that issue, which has been tied to the country’s future fiscal and financial health, would have continued the "double-digit" rise in health-care costs and increase the burden on businesses paying for employee coverage.
"Given how difficult fighting the special interest has been on Capitol Hill, it’s clear that, if we hadn’t decided to make a bold step forward this year, we probably wouldn’t have had the political capital to get it done in the future," he said. "Sooner or later we had to take that on, even though we knew it would be politically difficult."
Obama rejects criticism on health-care reform legislation – washingtonpost.com