Communication Is What Ails Obama on Health Reform

President Obama’s failure to get health-care reform on a faster track, despite early legislative victories, is a personal one, Sam Youngman writes in the Hill. “While it is shocking to consider that Obama is anything less than one of the best communicators in modern political history,” Youngman writes, “when it comes to health care, he simply has not been able to make the sell to people who do have health insurance.”

“The stubborn realities of Washington have blunted and possibly even derailed the president’s signature domestic efforts,” Youngman writes. Obama may have erred in delegating health reform to congressional Democratic leaders. “His political capital is not necessarily a priority of theirs,” and only a firm hand can fix the damage already done. “He needs to take this over and own it,” one professor says. (More President Obama stories.)