Jon Cohn has a well-reported look at the administration's internal debate over health-care reform before the budget rollout. I'll leave the health-care substance to Ezra, but I do want to recall the transition debate about Obama's personnel choices: Were his experienced, competent, but often centrist advisers going to lead to policy incrementalism? Well, it seems that Obama has been willing to keep his foot on the pedal to prioritize major reforms:
And health care, in the end, might have gotten pushed aside--except that one very senior official in the administration kept insisting that it stay on the agenda. That official was Obama himself. Repeatedly, the president made clear that he was not abandoning health care reform. There was the meeting in early January where he expressed disappointment with the budget numbers his advisers were showing him. And there was the Sunday after the inauguration, when Daschle found himself in the White House to meet with Rahm Emanuel. Daschle had requested the get-together in order to clarify the president's intentions on health care. During the meeting, which took place in Emanuel's office, Obama himself stopped by and reiterated to Daschle what he'd been saying in public: He was doing health care this year.
-- Tim Fernholz
