President Obama spoke about health care reform today, and hit Republicans for only talking now about controlling costs, when they “had ten years.”
“What happened? What were you doing?” he asked
Speaking at Arcadia University in Glenside, PA, Obama first talked about people “in Washington who respond to every issue, every decision, every debate, no matter how important it is, with the same question. Well, what does this mean for the next election?”
“They’re obsessed,” he said, “with the sport of politics.”
You want people in Washington to spend a little less time worrying about our jobs, and a little more time worrying about your jobs.
He also stressed that “we’ve been talking about health care for nearly a century,” and “we have failed to meet this challenge during periods of prosperity, and also during periods of decline.”
“If not now when? If not us, who?” Obama asked.
The President also took the opportunity to hit Republicans: “I got all my Republican colleagues out there saying ‘No, no, no, we want to focus on things like costs.’ You had 10 years. What happened? What were you doing?”
Watch:
Obama also briefly referenced the public option, noting that he “didn’t think it was going to be practical and realistic to do it here.”
He concluded that “the opportunity is here. Let’s seize reform. It’s within our grasp.”