What to Watch For in Obama's Speech

Says insurance companies will raise rates 'as long as they can'

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama got downright fiery today, in a speech on health care at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania, lambasting insurance companies for their ever-higher premiums. “They will keep doing this for as long as they can get away with it,” he said. “How many more Americans have to lose their health insurance? …. When is the right time for health insurance reform?” More»

Vitriol surrounding health care debate sure to continue

(NEWSER) - President Obama’s speech last night will probably prod Congress into passing health care reform, writes Joe Klein in Time. “But it will not end the public malignancy that has attended this debate, and threatens the democratic fabric of our nation.” Klein attended an Arkansas town hall recently and was shocked by the vitriol. He’s afraid that poison will spread from fans of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to the public at large. More»

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama delivered the speech many on the left were waiting for. Will it be enough? Here’s what they’re saying.

• Obama seemed to shed his inner Adlai Stevenson, and discover “a new role model in the fighting Harry Truman,” writes EJ Dionne of the Washington Post. “For the cause of health care reform, it was about time.”

President steps up, doubles down on health care reform

(NEWSER) - Conservative commentators were, predictably, less than impressed with the president's big speech on health care reform last night. Here’s what they’re saying:

• Obama’s speech “was 40 minutes of boilerplate followed by a socko, emotional finish exploiting the death of Sen. Teddy Kennedy,” Fred Barnes writes in the Weekly Standard. But he still didn’t explain how he intends to pay for it, and that’s his big problem.

Mr. Obama goes to Washington

(NEWSER) - A joint session of Congress might not have been the perfect setting for Barack Obama's health care reform speech last night, writes Washington Post critic Tom Shales. All that "pomp, circumstance, and folderol," including 16 minutes just to get to the lectern, may have led voters to change the channel. Yet for those who watched, Obama came across as a "bright, ambitious young president up against the stodgy old defenders of a corrupt status quo"—a Jimmy Stewart figure in the halls of power. More»