Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t President Obama completely skip over any mention of his signature achievement-health care legislation-in last week’s jobs speech?
Okay, the subject was job creation, but ordinarily I’d have expected him to plug Obamacare, perhaps even citing it as something that will create jobs (thought this is not the case). But he was mum.
I hadn’t noticed this omission until I read Grace-Marie Turner’s piece just now. President Obama has gone silent on Obamacare, according to Turner. Remember when he couldn’t stop talking about it? Well, have you heard him say anything about it lately? Neither have I. I went back and read Thursday’s speech.
The closest the president came to the subject of health care was saying that Medicare and Medicaid need to be reformed. But he he spoke of this as something in the future, avoiding the recent past. Cat got your tongue, Mr. President?
Turner writes:
The White House is quietly implementing a shrewd new strategy of silence on Obamacare. Its goal: making sure the revolt against the unpopular health care overhaul that swept Republicans into power across the country in November 2010 isn’t repeated in 2012.
Turner sees the president’s advisers as having said something like this with regard to his health care system:
Stop talking about it. Every time you talk about the sweeping overhaul of health care, your poll numbers go down. People know you can’t spend $1 trillion and pretend to reduce the deficit. Or take more than $575 billion out of Medicare and make it stronger. Anyway, it is now the law of the land and the wheels of bureaucracy are grinding to make sure it takes effect in 2014. Your only job right now is to get reelected to veto any reform bills passed by the next Congress.
One reason for the White House to seek to calm opposition is that the Supreme Court is hesitant to overturn major legislation, ever how flawed, unless the public really hates it. It is up to opponents of Obamacare to make sure that the public knows that, if they don’t continue to stay informed and make their loathing of Obamacare known, the Supremes are less likely to overturn it.