Quote of the Day

Here’s the President making a timely point on health care reform (emphasis mine):

At the Republican caucus, they held up—they said, we’ve got a plan; it’s going to provide everybody coverage at no cost. And I said, well, if that were true, why wouldn’t I take it? My wife Michelle thinks I’m stubborn sometimes, but I’m not that stubborn. Okay, let me think. I could have everybody get health care coverage that’s high quality, and it’s free, which I’ll bet is really popular. But I’m not going to do that. I’m going to go through the pain of really working through this hard process in Congress, getting yelled at and called a socialist, because I just — that’s how I roll. I’m a glutton for punishment. (Laughter.)

No, look, if this were easy and simple, first of all, somebody would have done it before. Seven Presidents have failed at this; seven Congresses have failed at this. If this was simple, it would have already been done. It’s not.

This much I know to be true: Americans don’t like complication. Which is part of why Obama, the former law professor, loathe to dumb things down, has trouble explaining policy to the American people in terms they can understand. Which is why I thought the State of the Union was mostly successful.

Mark Blumenthal, meanwhile, published a column this week that I think goes a long way towards explaining why Americans are generally against health care reform, until they know anything about it.