Obama's Health Care Speech Upstaged: Today's Outrage

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- President Obama's big health care reform speech last night was seriously upstaged by all the undue attention being given to the unseemly outburst by Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.).

Never mind that Wilson was reprimanded by fellow Republicans and humiliated into issuing a public apology.

Never mind that most of the assembled lawmakers tolerated the president's speech with the usual decorum.

Never mind that Obama actually offered a big concession to Republicans by suggesting a willingness to abandon the public insurance option.

Never mind that we actually need some reforms to our inefficient health care system.

Please put all that aside so that we can talk about Wilson's outburst.

It was like watching the British parliament heckle the prime minister, only without the intellectual undertones.

It was brilliantly staged theatrics like the infamous shoe-banging by Nikita Krushchev at the United Nations back in 1960. And like the case of Kruschev's shoe, Wilson's outburst is now as much a topic of discussion as the topic at hand.

But perhaps Wilson's moment will be short lived. Maybe our political leaders will find a way to have a constructive dialog about the real issues for once.

It would be nice if we could replace the emergency rooms as the health care providers to the poor. We all know that's how it works and we all know that it's the most inefficient and expensive way to do things. I'm sure even the lobbyists for hospital chains like Tenet (THC Quote) would agree.