The Health Care Follies Continue

I hoped to talk more about the farce of the health care reform bill, but Harry Reid went and got the Senate debate started on Saturday by the skin of his teeth, in a move that only makes sense if you intend to force-feed a bill down America's throats in time for Christmas. But Byron York notes how much remains to be done for Reid and the Democrats...

"If the bill remains where it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage," Sen. Joseph Lieberman said. "I'm prepared to vote against moving to the next stage of consideration as long as a government-run public option is included," said Sen. Blanche Lincoln. "My vote to move forward on this important debate should in no way be construed by the supporters of this current framework as an indication of how I might vote as this debate comes to an end," said Sen. Mary Landrieu. And Sen. Ben Nelson said he will "oppose the second cloture motion -- needing 60 votes -- to end debate, and oppose the final bill" if major changes are not made.

Some of that is the normal positioning and bargaining that takes place when big bills are considered. But the Democrats' problems in keeping their side together, in the face of united Republican opposition, are an indicator of how public opinion is beginning to dominate the health care debate. Dozens of polls show that Americans are deeply divided over the issue, with a slight plurality opposing the Democratic health care plans currently under consideration in Congress. Clear majorities of Americans don't believe their health care will improve under the plan, and do believe the plan will increase the deficit. Given that, Democrats are trying to pass the biggest piece of legislation in decades, one that will create an enormous and permanent new entitlement, with less than majority support among the public. And they're racing to do it with less than a year to go before mid-term elections that most observers believe will result in fewer Democrats in Congress. No wonder it's hard.

It says a lot that with massive majorities in both houses, the Democrats suddenly face razon-thin vote margins on their signature issue. Part of this is posturing, particularly in the House (where Pelosi and Emanuel were probably able to buy another 5 votes if needed), but a bigger part of this is the shift in public opinion. Actually, there's two shifts here at play.

The first is that the American public's appetite for reform is waning, at least in the current evironment. Between concerns about the deficit, the specifics of the legislation (will illegal aliens be covered? will there a public option? will Medicare be cut?), and the general opposition to big government solutions as people have grown sour on the non-working stimulus and bailouts, health care reform doesn't poll well. The liberals seem to be hoping that if they pass the bill, it will end the debate. I think that's foolish from an electoral point of view, but it is true that it's exceptionally hard to kill an entitlement program once it's established (although our expanding debt will soon test that theory). No matter what, it would be hard to argue that reform is getting more popular -- some surveys indicate it's less popular now than ever before.

But the second shift isn't just on the policy -- it's on Barack Obama. The President's approval ratings are slipping, so much so that people are joking about the narrowing spread between his approval versus that of Sarah Palin's. I don't think Obama's got a problem regarding Palin in 2012 -- I doubt she gets the nomination. But he does have a problem with the American public -- they're not fascinated by the shiny new politician in the window anymore. He's just the President -- they like (or increasingly, used to like) the guy, but expect him to do the job in a certain way. And when he doesn't, or they disagree with him, he hasn't been able to persuade them that he is right.

That last point is important. One of Obama's key advantages in the 2008 election was the perception that his golden tongue could lead people to support his policy initiatives. Yet on health care, a signature issue, he has not been able to rally new supporters around his ideas of reform -- in fact, he's been totally incapable of drawing support from the other side of the aisle. If Bush was President, we'd hear about how he's not being bipartisan. In this case, we hear about how the GOP is being obstructionist.

But in the end, it's on Obama. From day one, he's failed to articulate how his reform will work to (a) cover more people, (b) cut costs, (c) allow all of the people who like their own coverage to keep it, and (d) keep from imposing taxes on anyone save people making $250k or more a year. That's mostly because he can't do it (all of the above can't be done together), but the continuing attempt to sell it on these terms is so dishonest that the corrupt parts of the process are a sideshow. When we learned that Reid had to buy off Mary Landrieu with $100 million in aid for Louisiana simply to get the bill to the floor, it wasn't surprising. Given the rush to enact this powergrab without a real opportunity for the public to consider it, and then the continuing rush to enact it when the public has vociferously objected, it's not surprising that the legislation is unpopular. But the President's failure to convince a majority of why they should support it would have been shocking a year ago.

But now, it's common knowledge that Obama's oratory has been insufficient. That's why Obama is in trouble, whether he passes this piece of crap legislation or not.