Two years of inaction?

While President Obama's press conference on Wednesday seemed to be positive — and I said so in my post the next day — I fear that we will not see action to help the American people in the next two years. In the press conference, the President was asked some specific questions, and among them was one about whether he could sign legislation that eliminated the individual mandate. He explicitly answered:

“The individual mandate is a line I can’t cross because the concept, borrowed from Massachusetts, from a law instituted by a former opponent of mine, Mitt Romney, [he] understood that if you’re providing health insurance to people through the private marketplace, then you’ve got to make sure that people can’t game the system and just wait until they get sick before they go try to buy health insurance”

Of course, mentioning Mitt Romney was a gratuitous attempt at phony bipartisanship. Romney signed the Massachusetts law as a compromise with a legislature that was 85% Democratic. And it does appear that at the time he was convinced that it was necessary to prevent gaming the system. He has stated that this is an issue that should be addressed state-by-state, and if he had been elected President he would have signed an authorization for any state to opt out.

By making such statements, Pres. Obama has made it likely that there are important areas that he will not compromise on. And some of these will be necessary to compromise if any business can be done.