Sound of Obama’s Silence on Health Reform

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

Lyrics, “Sound of Silence,” Simon and Garfunkel, 1964

September 15, 2011- The sound of silence of President Obama on health reform is deafening.

In a September American Spectator essay, Grace Marie Turner of the Galen Institute observes,

The White House is quietly implementing a shrewd new strategy of silence on Obamacare. Its goal: making sure the revolt against the unpopular health care overhaul that swept Republicans into power across the country in November 2010 isn't repeated in 2012.

After two years of nonstop focus on health care, the president has stopped talking about the law's far-reaching effects. Now he is concentrating on a few micro changes. Meanwhile the administration is working hard to dampen controversy by handing out buckets of waivers and attacking Republicans.

Grace-Marie has it right. President Obama has decided to stop talking about his health reform law, which has not yet delivered on its promises of lower costs, keeping our own plan and your own doctor, increased access to doctors, and higher quality.

His speeches are beginning to fall on deaf ears. His phraseology is redundant. Listeners get the feeling he has “been there” but he has not "done that.” His rhetoric lacks results. His words no longer calm the public, the business community, and physicians.

They remain deeply uncertain about Obamacare’s consequences, as evidenced in polls showing 51% to 40% of the public does not believe his jobs speech will create jobs.

After the disastrous November 2010 elections, when Republicans took over the House, his advisers told him the fundamental cause of the Democratic fiasco was his health reform law.

So, Obama is remaining silent on health reform.

This is hard for the President. For him to believe his speeches are not golden is a tough pill to swallow.

According to Grace Marie, the Obama strategy has become.

1. Stop talking about health reform - His main job is to get re-elected. Anyway, he can always veto any health reform or repeal legislation.

2. Focus on the small stuff – 26 years being covered under their parents’ plans, free preventive tests, coverage for pre-existing illness, new insurance regulations.

3. Calm the opposition - Pacify the governors on Medicaid, Give waivers to your political allies.

This may work for a while. But not for long. Victor Davis Hanson, a conservative classic scholar at the Hoover Institute, says:

“Obama’s rhetorical quiver is empty. He can only say so much. His address to Congress last week went nowhere. It was hyped well. It was delivered well. It was comprehensive. But Obama had nothing to say that we have not already heard from him — and that has not already failed or proved to be hypocritical.”

“When the quiver is empty, the archer puts his bow away. Silence, not ‘This is our moment,” is the wisest course for Barack Obama now that the arrows are all gone.”

In the case of health care, his speeches may be silver, but silence is golden.

Tweet: The health reform law is unpopular. Obama is listening to his advisers and remaining silent on health reform,