Despite Obama’ s assertion at last night’s health care presser that the health care debate has nothing to do with him, the President is all that’s being discussed in today’s post-conference coverage.

The Right sees health care as Obama’s Waterloo–the one galvanizing issue that could finally sink the president’s soaring ratings–and they’ve been staunchly opposed to any Democratic proposal because of it. Citing a slew of recent poll numbers in this morning’s Wall Street Journal, Conservative bigwig Karl Rove makes the case that public support for “Obamacare” is dwindling, and provides reasons–albeit with a rightward slant–why independents may be souring to reform. The former Bush adviser points to the delay of the health care vote as a main indicator that the White House may not be getting the response it expected. Says Rove:

The polls are crumbling because of a flood of bad news about Mr. Obama’s health-care proposals…My guess is that members of Congress are about to hear a lot from their voters on the government takeover of health care, new energy taxes, the failed stimulus, record deficits, and growing joblessness.

Meanwhile, a handful of health care experts featured in The New York Times this morning is claiming that Obama may have stretched the truth a bit–no doubt giving the Conservative press some new ammunition for the coming siege. Although the House bill did receive the endorsement of the American Medical Association, for instance, half a dozen state medical associations have spoken out against it. And even though Republicans did contribute 160 amendments to the bill, most of them were technicalities that will have no effect on system. On the major Republican sticking point of cost, the experts had this to say:

In fact, $1.5 trillion of those “savings” are mainly based on an assumption that the United States would have had as many troops in Iraq in 10 years as it did when Mr. Obama took office. But before leaving office, President George W. Bush signed an agreement with Baghdad mandating the withdrawal of all American forces within three years.

Taking a more rosy look at Obama’s ongoing health care struggle, The New Republic struck a no pain, no gain tone in its conference coverage. While recognizing the political maneuvering that will need to happen before any kind of substantive legislation is passed, columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. says:

But the only choice that matters is whether we want to cover all Americans and begin the multiyear task of fixing the health system, or whether we prefer, once again, to use the details as an excuse for evading what we know must be done someday. The politics of escape uses difficulties as an excuse for inertia. The politics of tenacity accepts that some problems are excruciatingly difficult, and resolves to deal with them anyway. The crisis in Washington arises because that choice is now upon us.

Echoing these claims, Jerry Feldman on The Huffington Post says Obama may actually benefit from some rabble-rousing. Obama’s performance at last night’s conference was staid, and–save his remarks on the arrest of Professor Gates–the president did not make any sort of gut-wrenching appeals to the American people. If the democrats are going to push reform through, Feldman says, Obama needs to bring back some of that campaign-trail fire with him.

Obama’s single greatest strength as a politician has been his ability to speak in such a way that it makes Americans feel that we are soaring to new heights together…When it comes to healthcare reform, we need more drama, not less drama, from Obama.

Now that we’ve heard from the experts, what are your thoughts on the health care debate?

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