Just got a blip on my radar that "Obama Admits He's 'Not familiar' With House Bill [on health care reform]" Fortunately, I'm armed with Media Matters which debunked this earlier today.

But listen to this broadcast and notice how Rush Limbaugh speeds up the voice of Obama (as he does with Pelosi and Barney Frank) because they're in such a hurry to get this bill through:

This actually brings up the real question: Are we rushing health care reform? And, by implication, is it being rushed so fast that Obama doesn't know what's in it?

Is it possible that the President may not know some of the details of this bill? Absolutely, that's the case with any bill. However, I would be disheartened if Obama didn't have a strong command of the most salient specifics of the competing proposals.

Should healthcare reform be rushed? No. We're talking about a trillion dollars. I'm tired of rushing a trillion dollars. I understood the need-for-speed with regard to the finances, because money touches all businesses, and given how mercurial the economy is, inaction could just mean the need for money later.

But healthcare? We know exactly how much healthcare costs will grow by when, and the current rate isn't exceptionally alarming or surprising. If I didn't believe in my heart that conservatives and "centrist" democrats weren't just trying to delay for the sake of killing the bill, I'd say a reasonable amount of time to craft reform would be nine months to a year. Why not try to have it done by the Fall, realistically before Christmas? There, Merry Christmas.

I think it's plausible that Obama doesn't have a handle on the major specifics currently up-for-grabs in the committees. I keep a fairly engaged monitoring on health care news, and weeks ago, this SF Gate Article came up which compiled the competing drafts on health care reform, laid out in a easy-to-parse grid. But now, in this phase where actual proposals are being finalized, I haven't seen any similar article pop up on my radar. It was like a few weeks ago, there was all this clarity, and now in the past two weeks, I actually see a poverty of concrete details, along with an abundance of political mudslinging.

My guess, then, is that Obama doesn't know, on a day-to-day level, the status of some major provisions of the competing health care proposals. This seems apropo for Obama's "hands-off" approach that I've noticed. He gets really nerdy up-front, enough to convince everybody that he won't be conned, and then he kicks up his feet and just lets the cards play out. This is essentially "Obama Cool (TM)." But with intrade's chances of health care reform being perpetually capped at 50%, maybe he needs to reassess the game plan.