Obama follows my advice; and what is a lie?

Last blog I observed that Obama should come out and articulate three main goals for health care reform. He wisely did just that in his speech last week. Now there is something to debate.
But this blog is about the application of sound reasoning and logic to public discourse. During Obama's speech a member of the audience shouted out "You lie!" when Obama said that the reform bill will not pay for illegal immigrants.
This brings us to the discussion of what is a lie during public discourse.
All politicians, and salesmen, and ceo's and managers and pretty much all public spokespeople put "spin" on whatever they are saying. They try to word things in a way such that concerns are masked and positive attributes accentuated. These are not considered lies. Often such speeches are full of opinions and misleading facts. Often the opinions are summaries from reputable organizations, they are still opinions, although people generally considered experts might agree with them.
Other experts might disagree with those opinions, that doesn't make them lies. Other facts might provide evidence against the conclusions, that doesn't make having those conclusions lies. In the case of healthcare reform not paying for illegal aliens, we need to analyze what aspects of the reform might cause someone to think that it does; what aspect of the bill does the disrespectful member of congress feel contradicts the claim that illegals will not be paid for? What do people mean when they voice concerns about illegal aliens having their health care provided by Americans? What are they worried about?
In private conversations I have classified the health care "issue" as an economic issue, for which I was chastised. I suppose it was considered "insensitive" or too "dispassionate" to consider the issue an economic one. But it has been proven to be truly economic. The controversy is not about finding a cure for AIDS or cancer, streamlining FDA approval for various therapies, or breakthroughs in diet and exercise understanding, the controversy is clearly about who pays for all these things, and how much do we pay. It goes to the heart of what is the proper role of the federal government in society. Many people think of course the federal government, i.e. the American population as a whole, should provide health care for everyone regardless of economic circumstance. Many people think that each person needs to decide for himself what course he follows to provide health care for himself and how far his responsibility goes toward supporting others. This is what the debate is about. At some point a particular opinion will be put into law, but it will still be just an opinion. The only liars are the ones who refuse to admit this.

Application: Health Care Leadership

The health care debate, I suppose I should type "debate", is rife with examples of shoddy reasoning. Part of this is due to something I wish Obama would do: address the American people and describe his vision in clear terms. He is not writing whatever bill is being written, his leadership style is not one of emphasizing details, but articulating goals.
He needs to get up and say "Here are my three goals for healthcare" or two or four, but I believe in the magic of three. Three goals are easy to remember, they can balance each other, they can be measure against, they can be specific and unambiguous enough that action can be taken, but not so detailed that some trivia might derail them.
Ronald Reagan was good at this. He often repeated his goals: reduce taxes to improve the economy, defeat Communism worldwide, and reduce the size of government. When he spoke like this then we had something to argue against. You could argue against his goals, or you could argue against his policies and whether they would achieve his goals, and people did plenty of both. But the debate was understandable.
With healthcare the debate seems stuck on unarguable concepts.
First, do we or do we not have the best health care in the world? Well, what do we mean by "best"? What are the goals of a national health care system? This is what Obama needs to talk to.
Is the goal that everyone has access to health care? Is the goal that we have the highest life expectancy and the lowest infant mortality? Is the goal that we reduce the cost of life-style choice health problems caused by smoking and obesity? Is the goal that everyone gets free checkups every year? Is the goal to reduce the amount of money spent on health care as a nation? Don't assume that the meaning of "best" is understood by everyone.
Let the opponents of reform also state their fears, not fears of death panels and abstract concepts like "government takeover of everything." Don't convolve the skill of our doctors and nurses to take care of us with the system that actually pays for all of it. The reform is not about the FDA and approving drugs and procedures, it is an economic issue.
Health care costs are going up. Why? What are the factors? Do we care? What should the American budget for health care be? We spend tons of money on crap, why shouldn't health care be a bigger portion than it is now? In the current economic downturn we have heard of nurses getting laid off. Does that make sense? Shouldn't we have more nurses? Shouldn't the system should be able to provide at least comfortable living for all health care workers? As we get older as a nation don't we need more doctors and nurses?
Let's get the debate on issues of substance, and let's start with Obama laying out his three goals.