Barack Obama unveils a revised health-reform plan

HEALTH reform has been the Obama administration’s main domestic policy priority for nearly a year, but the president himself has been frustratingly slippery on the topic. Although he has given plenty of speeches on the topic and discussed various worthy ideas, he has sounded more like a chin-stroking academic than a tough-minded politician. Until now, he has preferred to let Congress come up with specific proposals. Then, on Monday February 22nd, Mr Obama at last unveiled his own set of proposals for reforming America’s troubled health system.

It is a gamble bred of desperation. Mr Obama’s aloof strategy, adopted in response to the failure of Bill Clinton’s micro-managed attempt at health reform over a decade earlier, seemed shrewd just a few weeks ago. After months of wrangling, the Democrats did manage to push (slightly different) reform bills through the House and the Senate; all they needed to do was to reconcile them into a final law. But before they could, the upset Republican victory in the recent Senate race in Massachusetts robbed the Democrats of the 60 votes they need for easy passage in the upper house. …