VIDEO: Obama gets grilled by Meredith Vieira of the Today show on health care reform

July 21, 12:27 PMPolitical Buzz ExaminerRyan Witt

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  Pres. Obama speaking on health care.  AP Photo J. Scott Applewhite

President Obama can deliver a speech with the best of them but he still needs some work on his interviewing skills.  A full video of the President's interview can be seen below.  In this interview with Meredith Viera President Obama must have felt like Sarah Palin last year.   To her credit Vierra did not go easy on the President asking some very leading and conservative-minded questions.  The President did not pull a "Palin" but at times he struggled delivered the message.

The President first responded very well to Vierra's question of "why the rush" on health care reform.  The President correctly pointed out how if left alone nothing gets done in Congress and just "waiting another month" has been the philosophy that has kept reform from happening for some fifty years.

Where President Obama struggled was in responding the Congressional Budget Office estimates.  The President tried to explain how the CBO estimates do not reflect savings in the private market but the message was never really communicated clearly.  After the President's answer, Vieira was left to respond "So they won't work?" in referring to health care cost reducing measures in the bill.  The White House needs desperately to work on explaining how this bill actually reduces health care costs overall.

Vieira then did President Obama a favor by switching topics to the Senator Jim DeMint "Waterloo" quote.  Vieira then accuses the President of playing politics on the health care issue as well as he promised to deliver health care in the campaign. Vieira correctly points out that President Obama is not immune from political interests when it comes to passing the bill.  At the same time, the President correctly responds by pointing to the Americans who need health care reform to be covered.

The next topic to be addressed was the controversial tax on the "rich" in the health care bill.  President Obama wisely diffused the issue of potentially "punishing" the rich by pointing out that he too qualifies as someone "rich" under the plan who would be taxed.  By applying the same standard to himself the President takes away from the argument that he is Peter Pan trying to steal from the rich.

In the next set segment of the interview President Obama pointed to the fact that "doing nothing" does not mean people will maintain their current health insurance.  Instead "doing nothing" will mean "losing what you have" as the President put it.  He supported his argument with the fact that premiums with double once more over the next five to ten years making health insurance unaffordable even for many people on employer paid plans.  This is the strongest argument the White House has and they should hammer it home in response to the Republican scare tactics on reform.

Finally, the President ended the interview with his strongest argument recovering a bit from a faulty start. In response to Vieira's continual questions of "why now" and "are you listening to concerns of Congressmen who say you are rushing" the President responded with a great sound bite in saying the "people" his is listening to include the mom whose son is dying from cancer and the business owner forced to layoff employees because of increasing health care costs.  By continually appealing to the interests of those currently suffering the President most effectively makes his case for reform.