President Obama: How will his address impact progress on health reform?

President Obama announced this week that he will greet the return of Congress next week with an address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night (September 9th). It is expected that the President will provide more specifics on some focused reforms he would like to see related to health reform legislation.

What do we expect to hear from the President? The White House has been very focused that the goal of health reform must be to:

1. lower costs
2. create a secure and stable health care system
3. provide access to affordable health care for all Americans

It is unclear how the President will address the most divisive issue of a public plan option but one scenario gaining support is to propose a public plan option that is used only as a fallback approach should savings from a market-based system not reach certain levels over time. Besides the controversial public plan issue, are there other specific ideas or policies the President will mention or will he keep to the big picture?