I thought the speech was pretty well delivered (as his speeches tend to be), though the quips about HC reform being cheaper than Iraq were childish and stupid.

But coming in with the sensible goals of (a) doing this step by step and (b) building upon areas of consensus, I thought he completely dropped the ball by not talking with specificity about key ways to cut wasteful spending on HC. He made some vapid statements about "this will pay for itself," but all he talked about were reforms that would cost more money. That was dumb and a missed opportunity to focus the nation on a first stage in reform that most would agree with - elimination of inefiiciencies and waste. And listening to a hyper liberal president saying "this will pay for itself," I just didn't believe him. Whereas if he focused on how he's going to make that happen I'd listen.

Then the GOP comes on and in ten minutes zooms right in on the main issue: cost.

I don't expect Obama to convert hard core republicans like myself, but I thought he really mishandled this. First, he let hyper liberal democrats waste the last several months drafting extremist legislation the country doesn't support, betraying the trust of a country that elected him to be a moderate (ie in the middle between conservative and liberal), not a mediator between the extreme leftists and moderate leftists in Congress. Second, he had the right idea on coming at this last night with a baby steps, bipartisan philosophy, but whiffed on the chance to focus on the cost containments that everyone could agree with.

Disappointing. Hope we don't blow a chance for a useful first step towards hc reform because we have a weak President that can't keep Congress on a leash.