Left: Obama Finally Steps Up

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»

Without a strong progressive movement, country won't shift leftward

(NEWSER) - If Barack Obama wants to be a transformational progressive president like Lyndon Johnson or FDR, he’s going to need a strong liberal movement in the streets. “Every Democratic president since Johnson has raised the hope that he would bring with him a new era of progressive reform,” writes Harold Meyerson, but they’ve all suffered from “the absence of a vibrant left movement,” like the communist, democratic socialist, or civil rights movements. More»

Progressives actually provided most of the votes

(NEWSER) - Lately the left has been taking its lumps, courtesy of the conventional wisdom that health care reform passed over liberals’ objections. That’s just plain incorrect, writes Tom Schaller for FiveThirtyEight . A lingering narrative holds that liberals can’t govern because the left is so unmanageable. But progressives provided most of the votes for health care. “They were its progenitors and protectors.” 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»

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.