“My attitude is: Go for it," Obama said. "If these congressmen in Washington want to come here in Iowa and tell small-business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest."

Obama hit the trail Thursday in Iowa to promote the crowning achievement of his first 14 months in office: a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system. And he started his campaign for the new law in the state where his caucus win in 2008 set him on the road to the White House.

Obama framed his latest battle as one against a Republican Party bent on snatching away help just as it’s within the average American’s grasp.

Obama went on the attack against GOP doomsday predictions. “Leaders of the Republican Party, they called the passage of this bill ‘Armageddon,’ Obama said. “End of freedom as we know it.”

“So after I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there were any asteroids falling or some cracks opening up in the Earth,” Obama said. “It turned out it was a nice day. Birds were chirping. Folks were strolling down the Mall. People still have their doctors.” 

It was a mostly supportive crowd, but included several hecklers.

“What about the public option?” a man angrily shouted, interrupting Obama’s speech and forcing him to engage on why there was no government-run insurance program in the final bill.

"That’s not in it," Obama replied.

"Why not?" the man yelled.

"Because we couldn’t get it through Congress, that’s why. So they – let’s – there’s no need to shout, young man, no need to shout,” Obama said.

The event had a campaign-style feel – and in fact, evoked comparisons to Obama’s upstart campaign for the presidency, comparisons the White House didn’t discourage. Iowa City was chosen because that’s the city where Obama unveiled his health reform proposal in May 2007.

Obama said health care reform is the "law of the land," and the crowd chanted "Yes we did" – a new take on the slogan from his presidential campaign.

Obama grinned and replied, "Yes we did. Yes we did."

Obama tried to reignite the passion of those campaign glory days in a speech at the University of Iowa.

“The road to this victory, Iowa, has been long, it has been difficult,” Obama said. “But what this struggle has taught us — about ourselves and about this country — is so much bigger than any one issue, because it’s reminded us what so many of us learned all those months ago on a cold January night here in Iowa, and that’s that change is never easy, but it’s always possible.”

Obama began his speech by reminiscing, pointing out that Iowa is “the state that first believed in our campaign.”

“When all the pundits had written us off, when we were down in the polls, this is the state that inspired us to keep on going, even when the path was uncertain,” he said. “And because of you, this is the place where change began.”

Despite the nostalgia, it was hard not to notice how much had changed in three years.

In May 2007, Obama told Iowans that “as president, I will sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of my first term in office.”

On Thursday, as Obama pitched a watered down version of his original proposal, he had to omit some of the key words in his original promise.

“Just a few months into our campaign, I stood at the University of Iowa hospital right around the corner and I promised that by the end of my first term in office, I would sign legislation to reform our health insurance system,” he said.

Much of Thursday’s speech read like an Obama ‘08 special.

Obama cast himself as a warrior fighting a tough fight on the right side of history. He described a new underdog dynamic in which he’s forced to beat back the same pessimists who doubted his campaign. They will eventually be proven wrong, he insisted, like they were in the November election.

Obama took his success on health care and, as he repeatedly did from state to state during the campaign, gave his audience the credit.

“Just like the campaign that led us here, this historic change didn’t start in Washington. It began in places like Iowa City, places just like this, with Americans just like you,” Obama said. “So this is your victory.”

After Republicans, health insurance companies continued to be Obama’s next favorite villain.

Because of the health care overhaul, he said, insurance companies will have to play by “a new set of rules” in a system that “treats everybody honestly and treats everybody fairly.”

“The days of the insurance industry running roughshod over the American people are over,” Obama said.

At the same time, Obama hit on the challenge he faces in selling his achievement: that many of the key provisions don’t go into effect for another four years.

It’s a tough sell for Americans who are seeing their premiums go up, and it’s one that will get harder for the president as the initial jubilation over the bill signing fades.

“So I just want to be clear: that means that health care costs won’t go down overnight,” Obama warned. “Not all the changes are going to be in place.”

But that was just a passing mention. Mostly Obama tried to accentuate the immediate, consumer-friendly features, particularly tax credits for small-business owners to help cover health care costs.

Obama touched on the law’s ban on insurance companies denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions and their parents. He did not mention that his Health and Human Service secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, is in the process of closing a loophole in the law.

He pointed out that people cannot be dropped by their insurance companies when they get sick or face lifetime caps on coverage; that students can stay on their parents’ policies until they’re 26 years old; and that seniors will receive $250 credits to help pay for prescriptions, a provision intended to close the doughnut hole in Medicare prescription drug program.

The president looked further forward a bit, touching on the health insurance exchanges he said will be up and running in a few years.

And as he did in his pleas for support during his election fight, Obama framed his current mission as one that requires “we.”

“Look, this is not the end of difficult times for America,” Obama told the crowd. “And as we meet those challenges, we’re going to face more resistance. We’re going to face more doubt, we’re going to face more cynicism. We’re going to hear more voices who will warn us that we’re reaching too far, that we’re going too fast; who are going to tell us that we can’t, who are going to just make wild accusations about what we’re trying to do.”

The president ended on a note he began three years ago. “We’re going to have to respond with the creed that continues to define the character of this country we love, and it’s my favorite memory of Iowa, that creed that says,” he said, “Yes, we can.”

dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm

March 25, 2010