I agree with a comment Lawrence O'Donnell made last night, though: Obama started out strong on this, but along the way, this message has fallen by the wayside. This one needed a constant drumbeat, and we haven't had it lately.

Mandatory drug tests for all media figures and politicians. Now.

Widespread coma? This is more like Flash Forward with a townhall/teabagger fever dream.

As with all statistics, the obsessive focus by conservatives and Blue Dogs on CBO scores ended as soon as the numbers weren't going their way, and they needed a new talking point to show that they're the "fiscally responsible" ones, even if objective reality says otherwise. I'm guessing that claiming Obama didn't talk about cost control is the new way to insinuate that it doesn't control costs. Because, y'know, if he didn't make that a goal of the bill, then it must not do it, and there's no need to look at the actual bill.

Mark Warner has been a real disappointment as a senator. Gilmore would have been worse, but still.

morans --like the "tire-iron" man.

dim bulbs save america... yee haw

✄ ✄ ✄ ✄ ✄ ✄ ✄ ✄ ✄ ✄ ✄ ✄ ✄ ✄

Those who control the past control the present. This is a firmly established Republican mantra.

As American as cherry pie and a cup of Joe

Does America even do "collective memories"?
I mean... beyond Washington and the cherry tree of course.

If you don't believe this is so, then how else can you explain republicans looking to be ascendant going into the midterms? The public trusts them to return to power and fix what they broke? Or: The public has the attention span of a three year old?

At any rate, time for your morning aphorism:

Our failed state is based on not remembering what we failed to learn.

Actually the Media is to blame. Obama has been talking cost, but they have been repeating death panels. The message has become confused. I guess that is to be expected, but knocking down cost has always been a priority for some of us, including Obama. The fact is we can't afford either the current health care "system" or the current bills. Unless we get costs under control America will slip economically. We can't sustain a system that is twice as expensive as our first world competitors on a per capita basis.

The sad thing is the current hijacked bills do next to nothing about costs.

The problem is that you can't solve the problem of costs merely by lowering the reimbursement rates. Health care reform has always been nothing but nibbling around the edges. In order to cut actual costs of health care we have to make fundamental changes to the health care system. We need to:

1) Dramatically increase the number of general practitioners by:
a - increase the number of MDs graduating from medical schools.
b - use financial aid and work-for-school programs so new doctors don't start out hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

2) Commodize wellness programs by putting clinics in places like shopping malls -- so people can get basic tests done easily and cheaply.

3) Change the reimbursement formula so that disease prevention is reimbursed at higher rates that disease treatment.

4) Change the tax code to encourage hospitals and clinics to share multi-million dollar imaging machines. Right now the incentive is to do more imaging to keep those expensive machines from being idle. (Note: this will cost jobs at GE and other imaging device manufacturers.)

Those are just some ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many others. But it basically comes down to Americans being made to understand that it's simply not possible for their health care to look like an episode of House, where an entire team of doctors works 24 hour hours a day to make them feel better.

"But for relevant political players to pretend this reality never happened is absurd."

Do you ever get tired of writing some variation of this at the bottom of most posts? I am not suggesting it isn't true, I'm just wondering if it's as frustrating for you to write over and over as it is for all of us to watch happening over and over.

As a programmer, I might offer you a suggestion. Created a button that takes only one argument: the subject of your post. Then create a randomize function that completes the sentence for you. It will save a lot of typing. LOL

Obama talked about unsustainable costs in the current system but failed to really talk about how our premiums would be cheaper with HCR. I thought a huge mistake was the initial push-back against the Lewin Group study. Instead of actually reading the study and seeing that Lewin estimated that a public option policy based on Medicare rates would sell for $2500 less per year for a family, we attacked the study for being insurance industry funded. I would have had every Democrat on tv or radio saying "$2500 cheaper" until people were sick of hearing it.

The American Public has the mental acuity and attention span of a three year old.

Therefore, they need to be told the same thing over and over- "look both ways before crossing the street". And still, some of us still need to be hit by a bus before the lesson 'hits' home.

This is like my husband's little joke when he forgets something I had told him about.

"Yes, but you didn't tell me in such a way that I would remember."

Except they're not joking.

Any and all messaging by the Obama administration was summarily drowned out by the "death panels" "Hitler", and "Govt takeover socialism" yellfest eagerly amplified by the media. I think Obama was caught surprised by the inanity.

WTF? Has anyone else had a comment monitored before posting on this site. Longtime user and commentor and never had this happen?

[the anti-spam component of Movable Type often holds posts with one or more links. we move as quickly as possible to find and publish those -- mod.]

If only Steve Benen had reported that the President focused on healthcare costs on an almost weekly basis. I don't understand why Steve hasn't discussed this important issue.

Your argument is correct. Obama has always emphasized cost control and the disaster waiting down the road if costs are not contained. I am disappointed that medical tort reform did not make it into the House bill. The Democrats sold out to the trial lawyers. Again.

Tort reform is certainly not the whole answer. And a way has to be found where negligently injured patients can still be compensated. But rationalizing the negligence system would still have been a positive step.

Is Obama selling health care reform as something other than cost control _now_? He's been talking about cost control the whole time... and never stopped! There has never been any other case.

Senator Warner will grab any excuse, even a not-quite-truthful one, to avoid rehauling the healthcare insurance system and offending his sponsors in the process. And he'll do it in poor English, too ("I wish the president would have started[...] Pshaw).

He was here a few months ago, for a fundraiser and talked about healthcare. He pretty much told us, if not in so many words, that he knows better than we do, what it is we need and want. Almost as graceless as Lieberprick, who called his constituents "confused".

As Redshift above has said, he's a disappointment. It seems that his previous job experience -- always executive (CEO of his own firm and then Governor of the state) -- has ill prepared him for a legislative position. He only knows how to issue orders, not how to listen.

@ exlibra, I thought Warner was going to be a superstar -- and then about a month or two ago I realized that I pretty much never heard his name in the national news.

EVERY speech Obama has given on healthcare has stressed cost control. Two problems.

1 - The MSM doesn't cover those parts of the speech. They focus on the Republican response more than the Presidents message.

2 - The Democratic party does not stick to the same script. How many times over the last six months have we watched Democrats not only stray from the WH message on healthcare but actively undercut that message? Give the Republicans credit on message discpline within the ranks.

The problem isn't that Obama hasn't been focused on health care costs. He has. The problem is that every Democrat and media pundit hasn't been trumpeting the need for reform as a way to control health care costs. This is something that the Republicans, odious though they may be, are very good at. They and their media lackeys repeat the talking points over and over and over again, sometimes even verbatim so that you know they are reading from a script. Because the Democrats haven't done that, the perception is that the current administration hasn't prioritized cost control as a fundamental component of reform.

Yet another confirmation in a series of recent evidence that one Winston Smith must be behind the writing of Morning Joe's scripts!

Hell, Mr. Smith must be writing for all the media these days regarding "history!" -Kevo

When media figures hear about money, they glaze over and blatantly pay no attention. Eh-he-heh-heh, math is harrrrrd. Then they fault politicians for not being serious about money.

But they sure like to review who's up, who's down, and how "effective" something was, especially by projecting their reactions onto The American People.

My post still hasn't been removed from moderation and it contained no links.

[I don't know what happened or where your comment went, but I have no pending comments from you. In fact, none on this thread at all. -Mod]

The whole cast of the Starbucks coffee clatch are relatively uninformed bloviators, not listeners or people who are interested in research. Truth and facts don't really matter, they're paid to look pretty and blab, blab, blab.

It's what makes it of the most annoying shows on cable news.

The basic line was: entitlement reform is "health care reform".

The entire economic growth from 2000 to 2008 was due to growth in the health care industry, the entire remainder of the economy was flat, zero growth. Of course, the end of 2008 reduced overall growth to zero.

Social Security benefit increases are based upon economic growth, overall growth. Yet these benefits are reduced by Medicare premiums (1/10 the actual premium). These premiums are growing much faster than the regular economy, reducing benefits.

Currently the only thing driving up Social Security benefits (and costs to the US Treasury) is health care costs, the same force which robs more of these benefits each year.

If any group should be for health care reform, it should be seniors on Social Security. They are guaranteed to lose every time health care costs rise faster than general inflation.

Did people actually believe that the morons on Morning Joe actually paid any attention to Obama's weekly addresses?

I agree with you the tort reform is not a panacea, but it would be a huge step forward. Just because it would benefit the insurance companies, doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Among the benefits would be:
(1) Relief to a beaten down medical profession
(2) Decline in defensive medicine, costs billions and exposes patients to unneeded medical risk.
(3)Capturing and compensating most victims of negligence. At present, only a minority of these folks are discovered.

The health care system needs help, but the legal system is even more dysfunctional.
See www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com under Legal Quality.