“Keeping America competitive requires affordable health care. (Applause.) Our government has a responsibility to provide health care for the poor and the elderly,and we are meeting that responsibility. (Applause.) For all Americans -- for all Americans, we must confront the rising cost of care, strengthen the doctor-patient relationship, and help people afford the insurance coverage they need. (Applause.)

“We will make wider use of electronic records and other health information technology, to help control costs and reduce dangerous medical errors. We will strengthen health savings accounts -- making sure individuals and small business employees can buy insurance with the same advantages that people working for big businesses now get. (Applause.) We will do more to make this coverage portable, so workers can switch jobs without having to worry about losing their health insurance. (Applause.) And because lawsuits are driving many good doctors out of practice -- leaving women in nearly 1,500 American counties without a single OB/GYN -- I ask the Congress to pass medical liability reform this year. (Applause.)” - President Bush

Earlier in the week, we all heard all the talk that healthcare was going to be the centerpiece of Bush's domestic agenda. Well, it's pretty obvious we didn't get it.

Rick Gundling, of HFMA, called Bush's points on healthcare "tempered" in HFMA's new blog Views.

Our very own Andrew Barna noted that he hoped for a bit more on EMR and that Bush essentially stuck to his healthy, wealthy, and wise playbook.

The hippocrates blog deftly pointed out that healthcare was not more important than any of the other 10-15 items on his SOTU laundry list.

TimeGoesby noted that only 4 sentences of substance were really dedicated to healthcare. And even those were "oddly tepid."

TheBaldGuy lamented that Bush did not address the uninsured at all.

The long and short of it is this: we were looking for more details, more hints, more direction, but we didn't get it.

Here's a roundup of bloggerreaction to the overall state of the union at pajamamedia.

By the way, healthcare came in 2nd (to terrorism) in a poll of American's top issues.

All this to say, let's stop talking about the State of the Union, see what he actually does, and in the meantime, move on to more substantial topics.