Excerpts of Obama’s speech are circulating, and two items are noteworthy.

First, he declares that “if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.” So we’re beyond “guaranteeing” you get to keep your health-care plan. But this is disingenuous in the extreme.

The issue with the public option is not whether you’d be required to give up your plan but whether private employers would dump their plans and private insurers would be driven from the marketplace, thereby herding the vast majority of us into a public plan. Also, the House plan itself makes clear what constitutes “coverage,” and if your plan doesn’t meet those requirements, you or your employer on your behalf will have to switch your plan. In short, this is hugely dishonest.

Second, the president seems to be doubling down on insulting and ignoring the critics. While Congress was laboring away, the president tells us that we also saw “the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned.” Got that — you town-hall attendees?

So far, this is not promising — and not living up to the president’s promise to get away from recriminations and get to some honest discussion of health care. But what did you expect from a campaign-speech addict?