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ObamaCare: An Albatross
for Democrats Part Three of Three By Dave Andrusko
As any reader of Today's News & Views or National Right to Life News Today knows, support for ObamaCare (never strong to begin with) has sunk virtually week-to-week. As we mentioned yesterday, the headline on Rasmussen Report was "58% Favor Repeal of the Health Care Law, 36% Are Opposed." Other polls show similar horrible numbers. The holdout--the outlier--has been the results found by the Kaiser Family Foundation. When KFF surveys the electorate about health care "reform," it was always sunny. Today KFF stumbled across what everybody else show right in front of their feet. "Public support for the health overhaul declined in August, a development sure to stir concerns among the Obama administration and congressional Democrats seeking to shore up support for the law in the months leading up to the mid-term elections," reported Laurie McGinley for Kaiser Health News. "The latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll found that 43 percent of Americans viewed the law favorably--down from 50 percent in July--while 45 percent held unfavorable views." These results, we're told, means that "despite months of effort by the administration to talk up the benefits of the new law," it's back to Square One [defined as the month of May]. Of course, this is hooey--ObamaCare has been in much greater trouble for a much longer period of time--but it's not worth bothering to rebut here. One of our primary concerns is ObamaCare and what can be done to trim its sails until we can sink the vessel. Part of that is making sure that everyone grasps what an anchor ObamaCare is around the ankles of all those Democrats who voted for it, rather than mindlessly agreeing that what's "really" on the electorate's mind is the economy. This is not to say, obviously, that people aren't worried about jobs and unemployment and housing prices and the like. We are. But that is to miss the important role ObamaCare played in turning voters, especially Independents, against Democrats. What mustn't be lost in the electoral shuffle is the analysis found in a brilliant piece at realclearpolitics.com today: "Health Care Reform Has Endangered the Democratic Majority," written by Jay Cost. [www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2010/08/health_care_reform_has_endange_1.html] I want you to read it, so let me just provide a summary paragraph that appears about half-way through: "[T]he fact that the health care bill is no longer the topic du jour does not mean it is no longer an issue. The real questions are whether the health care bill moved voters away from the Democrats, and whether those voters have since moved back now that the debate is over. The answers are yes--the debate moved voters away from the Democrats; and no--the voters have not come back." ObamaCare is an albatross for Democrats that no amount of deflection or pretending otherwise can change. |
