>Unfortunately I think you may be correct, despite the fact that limitations on payments to Medicare providers are already approved. In which case all Obama can do is revert to bumper-stickers himself. he needs to push FUD buttons like middle class bankruptcies and "Death Panels" that are inevitable for everybody including the elderly if his opponents prevent insurers being forced to compete on service and price rather than risk-avoidance.

The "middle class bankruptcies" and "death panels" and "47 million uninsured" and "dropped for pre-existing conditions" and "preventitive care" and "no illegal immigrant care"...and...and...etc buttons have been pushed and the result is less and less support. Obama hit the reset button with his speech and after a brief (less than 7 day) bump in the polls, support is lower than pre-speech. At some point he and Congress are going to have to pull the trigger on something or resign his first major policy a failure.

Dick Morris recently succinctly described Obama's problem : "He's trying to create a program to force people who don't need it to buy health insurance so as to lower costs for those who do and to subsidize part of the price tag by cutting medical care to the elderly."

Re-framing the debate will be nearly impossible at this point. The choices are becoming obvious. Reconciliation or re-write.