The political dangers of passing a health care billThe White House -- as we wrote yesterday -- is dead set on passing the health care bill and will stop at nothing politically to get it done.
But, new data in the NBC/WSJ poll suggests that simply passing a bill -- whatever is in it -- won't solve Democrats' political problems on health care.
Two data points stand out:
* Just 32 percent of of the sample said that President Obama's plan is a good idea while 47 percent said is a bad idea. Public opinion on that question had eroded even since October when 38 percent thought passing some sort of health care bill was a good idea while 42 percent said it was a bad one.
* More people now believe that it would be better to not pass the plan and maintain the status quo (44 percent) than think passing the plan and changing the system is the right course (41 percent). In October, those numbers were reversed with 45 percent agreeing with the idea that passing the Obama plan was the right thing to do while 39 percent preferred to keep the status quo in place.
What that data tells us is that the White House is pushing to passage a piece of legislation that large swaths of the American people neither want nor think will work.
The White House -- well aware of what the polls say -- is basing the necessity of passing the bill (and doing it as quickly as possible) on a belief that the alternative of giving up or starting over is politically untenable because so much political capital has already been poured into the effort. (It's sort of like waiting in a REALLY long line at Disneyworld -- sure you've been in line for hours on end but getting out of line is way worse than waiting another hour.)
They also believe -- as senior adviser David Axelrod's unsolicited call to "Morning Joe" this morning indicates -- that the legislation, once implemented, will succeed and in doing so will change the American public's perception of it. "We're on the verge of doing something that would make an enormously positive difference for people," Axelrod said in a sentiment he has undoubtedly repeated to any number of wavering Democratic lawmakers in recent days.
Accepting the premise that the legislation will ultimately make changes for the better in the way in which health care is delivered in the country, it's not clear that those changes will be felt in a real way before next November's midterm elections.
It's equally plausible to think that the confusion created by the changes instituted in the bill could turn perception -- at least in the short term -- against the legislation and the party who conceived of it.
Steve Bouchard, a Democratic consultant, called health care a "huge problem" for Democrats in 2010. "It will be much easier to vilify this bill in the short run than it will be to show its effectiveness in the short run," he said. "A health care solution by nature is a long-term fix -- not easily boiled down to sound-bites, bumper stickers and rally signs."
If Bouchard's scenario came to pass, Democrats would be in an electoral trap: not only would they get blamed for the bill by a significant segment of Republican and independent voters, they would also run the risk of having further de-energized their liberal base heading into the midterm elections.
Again, the NBC/WSJ survey paints a dire picture. Fifty six percent of Republicans call themselves highly interested in the 2010 election while 46 percent of Democrats say the same. Among that highly interested group, Republicans hold a 47 percent to 39 percent edge on the generic ballot question. That sort of base energy disparity should worry any Democrat with even a passing interest in the 2010 election.
The numbers make clear that simply passing the bill isn't the panacea to Democrats' political problems on health care. In fact, there's a very real possibility it could make things worse.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/white-house/the-dangers-of-passing-a-healt-1.html
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