Culture

Obama shows former fire and fighting spirit at college rally

by Susan Marie Kovalinsky | September 17, 2009 at 09:08 am

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President Obama: Health Care Reform "the defining issue of this generation". . .

(*my preference of video footage was the Associated Press video, but as it will not upload, these shall have to suffice in the interim. smk)

Speaking before a crowd of thousands of cheering university students at the Comcast Center in University of Maryland, College Park, MD, today President Obama showed the fire and charisma of his old self in the campaign trail days. During a healthcare rally, the President was adamant that he would not allow the conflicts and falsehoods which have marred the debate on healthcare reform to drag down his platform of change. When one student called out, "I love you", the President responded swiftly and in a paternal tone of quiet patience, "I love you back". Of course the naysayers will view this as simply more of the empty rhetoric that they have charged Obama with all along, but psychologically, it carries a charge, and gives Obama a power beyond the merely political:

Calling health insurance reform a "defining struggle of this generation," President Barack Obama told thousands of college students Thursday that Congress must resist scare tactics and false accusations to do a makeover.
The fight will be difficult, Obama said, but an "unprecedented coalition" of hospitals, doctors, nurses and drug makers support the effort. Some of the most enthusiastic backers, he told loudly cheering students at the University of Maryland, "are the very medical professionals who have firsthand knowledge" of how badly the current system operates.

"When I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick," the president said.

Obama again called for a public insurance option, which most congressional Republicans, and some Democrats, oppose. It would not amount to "a government takeover of health care," he said. Obama stopped short of insisting on such a plan.

Eliminating "waste and abuse" in the Medicare and Medicaid programs will help the government find money to cover most of the Americans now without insurance, he said.