President Uses Personal Experience To Frame Talk of Health Reform

President Obama appears comfortable using his personal history when discussing health reform, the New York Times reports.

For instance, in an interview for the New York Times Magazine, Obama discussed end-of-life care spending, using his recently deceased grandmother, who received hip replacement surgery shortly before her death, as an example.

Critics have used the example to make the case for why Obama's reform plan would lead to health care rationing, but others have suggested that the president has illustrated the trade-offs needed for curbing health care spending.

Obama said, "There is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, and ethicists," and "then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place." He added that it "is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through normal political channels" (Baker, New York Times, 5/1).