On the inside cover of the last issue of The New Republic, the conservative American Future Fund (AFF) took out an advertisement helpfully warning moderate Democrats to abandon health care reform. The ad features head shots of numerous Democratic members of Congress who lost their seats in 1994. The headline reads, “THE LOSERS OF 1994 … THANKS TO HEALTH CARE!”
I hesitate to impugn the intellectual integrity of any of the good folks who purchase space in this magazine in order to share their concerns about public policy. Yet I cannot help but wonder if AFF has truly proffered this advice in good faith. The ad calls health care reform a “Majority Killer.” Yet Democrats did not lose their seats in 1994 because they enacted health care reform. They failed to enact, or even vote on, health care reform. So it’s hard to see why this historical example recommends letting health care reform die an ignominious death as an attractive strategy for the majority party.
The political landscape looks worse for the Democrats than it did a year ago. Why has that happened? Republicans are expending a great deal of energy trying to convince Democrats that it’s because the Obama administration has overreached. Senator Lamar Alexander helpfully warns that Obama’s “policies, and those pushed by the congressional Democrats, are scaring the daylights out of people.”
The most direct and immediate goal of this campaign is to spook moderate Democrats into abandoning health care reform. It is true that some of Obama’s spending programs--the stimulus and the bailouts of the auto and financial sectors--have little public support. But health care reform actually remains quite popular. Many people think the right has won the health care debate, since polls show that narrow but stable majorities of Americans disapprove of Obama’s health care plan. The problem with this gauge is that it lumps together Obama’s critics from the right with those from the left.
For instance, one recent poll asks whether the Democratic plans create too much government involvement, the right amount, or not enough. Too much gets 42 percent, the right amount 34 percent, and not enough 21 percent. Another question shows that only 28 percent of Americans think the bill goes too far in expanding coverage to the uninsured, 33 percent say it expands coverage the right amount, and 35 percent say it does not go far enough. In both cases, majorities of the public either support Obama’s approach or wish it went further.
Moreover, a clear majority of Americans say that they want the Democrats to pass a health care bill with a public option, even if this means it would get no GOP votes--a striking result, given the misty-eyed sentiment Americans generally display toward bipartisanship in all its forms.
All of these results suggest that the Democrats’ biggest obstacle on health care reform is not a fundamental lack of public agreement but public weariness with the endless legislative grind. Vulnerable congressional Democrats may have individual interests in establishing their moderate bona fides by challenging their party leadership. But they have a far stronger collective interest in passing a bill.
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COMMENTS (5)
Can you give us a source for your polling results? They conflict with Gallup and Rasmussen
Can you give us a source for your polling results? They conflict with Gallup and Rasmussen
Popularity Contest
Has Obama gone too far? by Jonathan Chait
I am pleased that Mr. Chait is puncturing the Republican bubble machine.
BTW: Dr. Charles Krauthammer, the non-practicing psychiatrist, and friend of Dr. Marty Peretz, was receiving an adnormal amount of column inches recently. Dr. Krauthammer is a favorite of the Rupurt Murdoch press empire. Finally, someone is standing up to this journalist-spinmaster and non-practicing psychiatrist.
Popularity Contest
Has Obama gone too far? by Jonathan Chait
I am pleased that Mr. Chait is puncturing the Republican bubble machine.
BTW: Dr. Charles Krauthammer, the non-practicing psychiatrist, and friend of Dr. Marty Peretz, was receiving an adnormal amount of column inches recently. Dr. Krauthammer is a favorite of the Rupurt Murdoch press empire. Finally, someone is standing up to this journalist-spinmaster and non-practicing psychiatrist.
Oy! I hope that none of the Teabaggers sees that Stalinesque illustration!
Otherwise, there's the placard picture for Bachmann's next demonstration.
(I have to say that the artist did a better job than the Teabaggers' own Obama-as-Hitler and Obama the Witchdoctor signs!)
Oy! I hope that none of the Teabaggers sees that Stalinesque illustration!
Otherwise, there's the placard picture for Bachmann's next demonstration.
(I have to say that the artist did a better job than the Teabaggers' own Obama-as-Hitler and Obama the Witchdoctor signs!)
I wrote last fall that I thought Obama's will be a one-term Presidency. I stand by that comment. (In fact, I strongly believed it even as I turned over half a week's pay to his candidacy. I'm funny that way.)
This is less a criticism of him than my belief that we turned a corner over the last many years and are headed down, down, down as a society for many years to come. No one, including Obama, can turn things around anytime soon. Anyone, including Obama, will be blamed for trying and failing.
Where to start? Pick one: healthcare, employment (this is the biggee for 2012), the deficit (i.e. higher taxes + growth suppression), entitlements for the elderly, climate change, nuclear terrorism, bal ... view full comment
I wrote last fall that I thought Obama's will be a one-term Presidency. I stand by that comment. (In fact, I strongly believed it even as I turned over half a week's pay to his candidacy. I'm funny that way.)
This is less a criticism of him than my belief that we turned a corner over the last many years and are headed down, down, down as a society for many years to come. No one, including Obama, can turn things around anytime soon. Anyone, including Obama, will be blamed for trying and failing.
Where to start? Pick one: healthcare, employment (this is the biggee for 2012), the deficit (i.e. higher taxes + growth suppression), entitlements for the elderly, climate change, nuclear terrorism, balance of payments, deteriorating educational system, deteriorating infrastructure, inner-city war zones, reliance on fossil fuels, vanishing middle class, offshoring of high tech, offshoring of pharmaceuticals and biotech (follow-on biologics seemed like a such a good idea at the time...).
Americans are coddled--again, not meant as a criticism per se, as I believe any nation as fortunate as we've been for so long would end up as spoiled as we are--and lack the patience or the fortitude to accept hardship for long. This week, to name one example, plenty of women are screaming bloody murder about modest and at least partially justified recommendations to postpone mammograms. And if you think they're squawking now, wait til they get to the endgame and start draining the Medicare system of more money in the last two months of their lives than we budget for the entire Department of Education. Think diabetes is expensive? Can you say "13 million Americans with Alzheimers by 2050," boys and girls? Only a fool thinks there won't be serious rationing of healthcare before the end of the Baby Boom rides off into the sunset. (I can give you a half-dozen examples of rationing happening right now from my own family, and we have some of the best health care plans in the country. As if guaranteeing that everyone is covered is some kind of solution! That's funny!)
Obama's only hope for a second term is that the GOP nominates an idiot, which is of course well within their power to do. But I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Meanwhile, their (GOP) money is just as sound as it's always been, whereas Obama's money was a lot of one-shot cash from folks who thought they'd put their cynicism on the shelf for a round. We'll never see that money again. Those folks have six-figure student loans and they're baristas for the foreseeable future. Twenty years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift, as the man said.
Nope, Obama's screwed. Too bad; he's a good guy--smart, circumspect, has some good ideas, carries himself well. He'll get chewed up and spat out, just like the next President, and the one after that, and the one after that...
You forgot plagues Mr Yard. I think a plague will do us in before anything else.
I agree with every syllable you wrote. Its a sad, astringent post but pretty undeniable.
You forgot plagues Mr Yard. I think a plague will do us in before anything else.
I agree with every syllable you wrote. Its a sad, astringent post but pretty undeniable.