BrianGarst.com

President Obama delivered yet another speech yesterday, this time on home turf at the Congressional Black Caucus.

There was nothing groundbreaking about the speech. Obama wrung his hands once again and blamed everything on Bush. He even reveled in this tired bit of blame-dodging, which he whimsically called “a stroll down memory lane.” After he finished waving his hands in this common but increasingly futile effort to distract from his numerous failures, he turned to health care.

One of the more odd assertions was a claim that, “we have been waiting for health reform since the days of Teddy Roosevelt.” Is that a fact? That certainly raises the question: exactly what was in need of reform in 1901, when there was no such thing as health insurance, Medicare, or HMO’s?

The only way to make sense of such an incomprehensible claim is to realize that “health reform” is code for government provision of health care. When properly understood, we realize that intellectual descendants of the Progressives really have been waiting for such “health reform” since Teddy Roosevelt. Indeed, they’ve been waiting diligently for big government Progressive Presidents, from FDR to Obama, to nationalize all the important industries in America.

The problem for the President is that he’s been selling something quite different, because he knows the broad public has not been waiting for any such “health reform” since Teddy Roosevelt.  And as more and more of the public discover just what the President means by “health reform,” they’re increasing saying, “no, we can’t.”

Barack Obama Congressional Black Caucus