In a Business Week interview, Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag says the following:
[T]he President has put forward a specific plan that expands coverage, reduces the deficit, and will put in place an infrastructure that will help contain costs. Let’s not forget that if we don’t get health reform done now, I don’t know that anyone’s going to be willing to try again for a very long time.
Let?s ignore for the moment the truth of Orszag?s assertions about the Obama plan?s fiscal prudence and potential impact on health coverage.
Instead I want to focus on the second sentence. Orszag likely made this comment to impresss upon his interlocutor the urgency of reaching a health-care deal.
For this reader, Orszag?s statement has the opposite impact. If health-care reform is an ?urgent? problem, then something must be done. No ObamaCare? OK, move on to the next option for addressing the urgent need.
On the other hand, if the failure of ObamaCare would mean that no one would be ?willing to try again for a very long time,? the issue can?t be that urgent. Why would elected leaders risk the public?s wrath by ignoring their cries for health-care reform for a ?very long time??
They wouldn?t have to ignore the cries for reform. There would be no cries. Health-care ?reform? is not as urgent as the administration would like us to believe.
