Leadership Quote by David Obey

David Obey’s line is the kind of inside-the-room realism that sounds like hairsplitting until you remember what “cut” does in American politics: it turns budget math into a morality play. His intent is to discipline the rhetoric. “Cut health care costs” is a crowd-pleaser that implies an absolute drop in spending, like finding a cheaper grocery store. Obey is warning that, in Washington, what’s usually on offer is something far more technocratic and far more defensible: slowing the growth curve.

The subtext is as much about expectations management as it is about policy. By steering listeners toward “a cut in the rate of increase,” he’s conceding the structural forces that push health spending upward - aging populations, new technologies, chronic disease, pricing power - while trying to preserve the political possibility of reform. He’s telling allies: don’t promise the miracle; promise the achievable. And he’s telling opponents: stop pretending any deviation from projected growth is a failure or a “cut” to care.

Context matters because “cut” is a weaponized word. In debates over Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act era budget fights, the same policy can be framed as either restraint or cruelty depending on whether you compare it to current spending or to a future baseline. Obey’s phrasing exposes that baseline game. It’s not just semantic caution; it’s a preemptive defense against the inevitable attack ads that treat “spend less than we planned” as “you took something away.”