Jake Tapper of ABC News specifically asked Obama about sacrifice and whether ordinary Americans will have to “give up some things” in order to enjoy the enormous benefits Obama is promising.

“They will have to give up paying for things that don’t make them healthier,” Obama said. “If there is a blue pill and a red pill and the blue pill is half the price and works just as well right now, why not pay half price?”

Why not indeed? And so all we have to do is find a whole lot of blue pills.

But don’t worry, we will. And they won’t cost much. “We inherited an enormous deficit,” Obama said. But “health care reform will not add to the deficit; it is designed to lower it.”

And as it is designed, so it shall be. Because that is the way of Washington, isn’t it?