August was not supposed to go down like this.
President Barack Obama Wednesday led back-to-back conference calls with progressive religious leaders and his own grassroots supporters, looking for some backing on health care reform.
After nearly three weeks spent in the horse latitudes of death panels, appearing to waffle on the public option and alarming seniors with proposed changes in Medicare, the Obama administration is no closer to building consensus behind the reform agenda.
“Obviously the president will talk about the importance of providing access to affordable health insurance for millions of those that currently don’t have it,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. “Boring consistency.”
The administration had hoped to use the month of August, with Congress away on recess, to reboot and refocus the health care effort.
Instead, with support fracturing for the reform agenda — which still lacks a cohesive plan — the Obama administration was forced to shore up constituencies like liberal clergy and the president’s own volunteer organization — groups that should have been with him all along.
Obama on Friday heads to Camp David for the weekend, ahead of a week-long vacation with his family on Martha’s Vineyard.
“The D.C. media has been trumpeting coverage of town halls disrupted by angry opposition to reform,” former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe wrote in an email to supporters. “But the reality on the ground is very different.”
Obama’s political organizers have been working to mobilize volunteers to pressure lawmakers to support the president’s health care reform ideas. Plouffe called the effort “astounding.”
Even so, Republican lawmakers have begun declaring openly that Obama lacks enough votes in the Senate to pass health care reform, and particularly if it includes a government-run public option.
Democrats signaled they may be willing to use their majority to push something through without Republican votes — a tall order, considering the trouble Obama has had keeping the moderates in his own party in line on health care reform.
Once the distraction of last week’s death panel debate subsided, the administration launched one of its own, recalibrating it’s message on the public option to suggest the provision could be on the table for negotiation.
Gibbs and other administration have been pushing back hard, saying the administration has been consistent in calling for a public option.
The AARP this week said it was losing members over its support of health care reform — an estimated 60,000 out of 40 million members.
Congress is considering paying for health care reform in part by reducing Medicare payments to health care providers, as an incentive to improve services — a proposal that has alarmed many seniors who rely on Medicare.
A new NBC News poll underscores the toll August is taking on White House efforts to regain control of the health care debate: 55 percent believe the plan would provide health care to illegal immigrants, 54 percent believe reform would lead to a government takeover of health care, and 50 percent believe it would pay for abortions .
