US President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail again, this time in an effort to drum up support for the healthcare reform bill currently facing. On Monday, on a college campus in Glenside, Penn., Obama delivered a fiery, jacket-off attack on insurance companies and premium rate increases and called on voters to urge their representatives to pass the healthcare bill.

At this point, it remains unclear whether Democrats have the votes to pass the healthcare bill, and the Obama Administration is wasting no time in recasting the healthcare debate with the insurance companies as the villains.

The Los Angeles Times’ reported, “Obama said that Washington pundits obsessed with analyzing the political repercussions of a yes or no vote on healthcare are distracting lawmakers from what’s fundamentally at stake: If Congress fails to act, the president said, premiums will rise, insurers will deny coverage based on preexisting conditions and more people will be without insurance.”

But what will actually happen if Congress fails to enact this legislation? The New York Times in Sunday’s editorial page dealt with this exact question, outlining the practical effects of the reform, including the fact that the bill is actually already paid for. It’s a long piece – two pages – but well worth the read and part of a larger series on the healthcare debate in general. In the end, The New York Times came to the conclusion that not passing this reform could be a major setback. “Any change as big as this is bound to cause anxiety. Republicans have happily fanned those fears with talk of ‘dangerous experiments’ on the ‘best health care system in the world.’ The fact is that the health care system is broken for far too many Americans. And the country cannot afford the status quo.”

A host of questions do remain about what is a very big and comprehensive bill, although some of that has to with what The New Jersey Star-Ledger called the “GOP’s big lie”: Republican leaders have repeatedly claimed the Red Menace in the healthcare debate, that this plan will push America ever closer to socialism. Wrote the Star-Ledger in a leading editorial today, “The plan Obama is now pushing — basically the Senate bill with some modifications — does not fundamentally change the private-enterprise medical system, the for-profit insurance system or the reliance on employers to provide workers with coverage. If anything, it could prove to be a boon to the insurance industry, bringing it tens of millions of additional customers. In what Wonderland can that be called a ‘government takeover?’”

President Barack Obama discusses a point with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during the health insurance reform legislation meeting at Blair House in Washington, D.C., Feb. 25, 2010. Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson

And meanwhile, The Washington Post’s 44 Politics and Policy blog asks whether psychiatric care would be covered under Obama’s plan, in light of recent claims from Representative Eric Massa, a New York Democrat who yesterday stepped down from Congress yesterday amid allegations that he sexually harassed a male staffer. Massa told The New York Post that he was “railroaded” out of office by his fellow Democrats, because, he said, he was the deciding vote on healthcare in the house. The blog noted, however, “There’s no actual evidence to support the charge by Massa, who had offered at least two previous explanations for why he’s leaving office.”

Most everyone else is dismissing Massa’s claims, including the White House, but The Washington Post acknowledged that they certainly fueled growing anxiety over Democrats’ tactics in passing the bill.