PRESIDENT OBAMA’S health care plan is in trouble. If he really wants to accomplish reform, he might start by learning some lessons from the past. I witnessed firsthand President George W. Bush’s attempt, and unfortunate failure, to reform Social Security. Now, Mr. Obama is making similar mistakes in his effort to fix our health care system. One of the most important lessons is that words matter — maybe too much. Mr. Bush allowed his unwavering emphasis on “personal accounts” to derail a compromise that could have helped solve the larger problem of restoring the fiscal sustainability of Social Security. In...