If you thought President Obama's "red line" in Syria represented his first foray into ad libbing his way through his most important policy decisions, Politico reports that's not the case:

"The most important red line of Barack Obama's presidency was scrawled hastily in January 2007, a few weeks before he even announced he was running for president.

"Soon-to-be-candidate Obama, then an Illinois senator, was thinking about turning down an invitation to speak at a big health care conference sponsored by the progressive group Families USA, when two aides, Robert Gibbs and Jon Favreau, hit on an idea that would make him appear more prepared and committed than he actually was at the moment.

"Why not just announce his intention to pass universal health care by the end of his first term?

"Thus was born Obamacare, a check-the-box, news-cycle expedient that would ultimately define a president." 'We needed something to say,' recalled one of the advisers involved in the discussion. 'I can't tell you how little thought was given to that thought other than it sounded good. So they just kind of hatched it on their own. It just happened. It wasn't like a deep strategic conversation.' "

Ho, hum; we're only talking about promising to rework one-sixth of the U.S. economy on the spur of the moment, to keep from looking bad. And then sticking with the promise to keep the support of Sen. Edward Kennedy, even though the dying man intended to back him anyway.

I don't know if Obama also improvised another of his famous lines: "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period." But like many of his other famous promises, this one appears to have come with an expiration date. From the New York Times:

"Federal officials often say that health insurance will cost consumers less than expected under President Obama's health care law. But they rarely mention one big reason: many insurers are significantly limiting the choices of doctors and hospitals available to consumers.

"From California to Illinois to New Hampshire, and in many states in between, insurers are driving down premiums by restricting the number of providers who will treat patients in their new health plans.

"When insurance marketplaces open on Oct. 1, most of those shopping for coverage will be low- and moderate-income people for whom price is paramount. To hold down costs, insurers say, they have created smaller networks of doctors and hospitals than are typically found in commercial insurance. And those health care providers will, in many cases, be paid less than what they have been receiving from commercial insurers.

"Some consumer advocates and health care providers are increasingly concerned. Decades of experience with Medicaid, the program for low-income people, show that having an insurance card does not guarantee access to specialists or other providers."

So Obamacare plans are starting to look like more expensive versions of Medicaid, which fewer and fewer doctors will accept and which doesn't actually guarantee the insured person will be seen by the necessary doctors. (Despite this central failing, Obamacare backers continue to advocate adding millions more poor Americans into that program rather than fixing it first.) And while someone who didn't have insurance before now may be happy simply to have access to any doctor whatsoever, the thousands of Americans who are learning they'll lose their current employer-based coverage and be dumped into the Obamacare exchanges may have a different opinion.

Note also that the line "health insurance will cost consumers less than expected" under Obamacare simply means the projections were even higher. It doesn't mean the cost will be lower than it is now, and in fact the opposite is true in many states.

But fear not: Candidate Obama had something to say, at a forum you probably never heard about, six and a half years ago.