Healthcare is "Complicated"

Wes Pruden writing in his Friday edition.

Mr. Obama sharply scolded Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia for bringing along a copy of the 2,400-page Senate bill and the 11-page proposal the president posted on the Internet earlier in the week. He called Mr. Cantor's preparation "the type of political stunt that gets in the way of serious conversation." The "truth of the matter," the president said, as Mr. Cantor began to speak, is health care is a very complicated subject.

Well, duh. But if Republican congressmen insist on reading from the actual legislation, instead of taking as Gospel the president's honeyed words (as honeyed as he can make them without his teleprompter), they keep the president from making something simple into something complicated and hard to understand. The president's problem is that the public understands very well what's in the elixir he's peddling. A CNN poll released Wednesday showed that only 25 percent of Americans want to take the legislative medicine.