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Obama is not the first President to try to reform the healthcare system to provide affordable, universal coverage, NBC's Chuck Todd reminded us: "Reform is something that has bedeviled Presidents on both sides of the aisle," he claimed at first, before offering a different view later in his report: "Every Democratic President since Harry Truman has vowed to tackle healthcare in a comprehensive way and somehow fallen short." So were there really any bedeviled Republicans?
Most of the contrasts were drawn between Obama and his immediate Democratic predecessor. NBC's Todd and ABC's Jake Tapper even ran soundbites from a Harry & Louise ad to remind us of 1994. CBS' Chip Reid reported that Obama claimed to have "learned the lessons" from Hillary Rodham Clinton's defeat 15 years ago when she "worked behind closed doors and put together a plan full of mandates. Instead of doing battle with insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals and doctors, this time all those groups are in the room." The President urged Congress to pass a plan by the end of the year. "Congress should start drafting legislation in the early summer," ABC's Tapper predicted.
TV news doctors are powerful voices in the medical-industrial complex too. ABC's in-house physician Timothy Johnson was invited to participate in the White House session. He confessed he was "blown away" by President Obama's grasp of the issue. CNN's in-house physician Sanjay Gupta has decided not to play an insider role, according to NBC's Todd. Dr Gupta has withdrawn his job application to be Surgeon General. Todd reported that Gupta would have had to take "a massive paycut" to don the surgeon's uniform.
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