Keep talking about your health-care reform proposals, Mr. President

PRESIDENT Obama's speech to Congress outlined health-care reforms that spoke directly to the nation's anxieties about finding and keeping medical insurance. He also triggered an alarm.

As Americans adjust to the aftermath and reality of a decade of economic stagnation, they are newly sensitive to the sound of anything too good to be true. They heard a disconcerting echo in the president's pledge to impose reforms and broaden coverage without adding to the national deficit.

The president said he would not sign a plan "that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future." Indeed the plan would be financed "by finding savings within the existing health-care system, a system that is currently full of waste and abuse."

Obama said he inherited a trillion-dollar deficit because the country started a war and doled out tax cuts without paying for them. Guilty and guilty.

This time the topic is health care, and once-comfortably-secure middle-class Americans feel vulnerable. They suspect the president's optimism is political hubris, and likely to compound the nation's financial woes. And dupe them again.

President Obama needs to keep talking, keep explaining. Congress needs as much hand-holding as the American public. Walk us all through the numbers, slowly and often.