A wise move

After allowing the opposition to frame the debate for weeks, President Obama reportedly is thinking about delivering a speech to outline what he thinks are the important elements that should be included in a health-care reform bill. Republicans have been effective in stirring up angst and anger about the reform legislation, and to this point, the White House has been largely silent or vague about its priorities. It's pretty clear at this point that Republicans in Congress have little interest in compromise on the issue and will never cast their votes for anything resembling meaningful change in the way we pay for health coverage. According to a new Associated Press report, one of the key Senate negotiators on health care, Charles Grassley of Iowa, said in a recent fundraising letter that he needed people’s help to “defeat Obama-care.” That doesn't sound much like a man who is interested in crafting a bipartisan approach to the very clear and very real problems in our existing health-care insurance system. The time has come for Obama to press for approval of the plan he campaigned on. Members of Congress should not be expected to blindly climb on board with the president, but they also should not be siding with insurance companies and their lobbyists at the expense of the American people. And that's exactly what they're doing if they refuse to take bold steps toward a major overhaul of the sick system we have now. And if the members of the president’s own party cower in fear of people like the shrieking town hall idiots who parrot what they hear from lying slimeballs such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, they should be ashamed of themselves.