Just How Unpopular Is The Health Care Bill?

In the later phase of the health care debate, the argument most often heard from Republicans has been this: The American people have rejected this bill; we are only their messengers.
The verb "rejected" is often amplified with words such as "overwhelmingly" or "resoundingly" or "again and again."
How can President Obama and his Democratic Congress possibly move a piece of social change legislation comparable to Social Security or Medicare without the support of the American people?
You can almost hear the deafening roar of response, even as you ask the rhetorical question.
As the GOP has featured this line over recent weeks, Democrats have been thrown back on defensive arguments. They say the bill's components are popular, even if the bill itself is not. They say the popular judgment is mostly negative because the news has been dominated by the process in recent months, not by the substance of the bill -- which remains largely mysterious to the average voter.
This recalls the judgment of some historians and political scientists that the Clinton administration's push to change health care in 1993-1994 ended badly not so much on substance as on image. The "optics," as political operatives would say, were awful. So the bill failed.
Lately, the optics have been pretty awful again. The moves made in December to nail down 60 votes in the Senate (and forestall a Republican filibuster) looked sleazy and cheapened the underlying bill. And when Democrats talked for a time about using a "deem and pass" procedure in the House that would enact health care "without a vote," the optics got even worse.
But with all that bad publicity and all the doubt generated by a year of debate and opponents' vituperation, the latest Gallup Poll showed 48 percent against the bill and 45 percent in favor.
That does not look like overwhelming rejection. In fact, it's within the margin of polling error.
Moreover, the 45 percent level of approval was achieved despite the same poll's finding that the respondents believed the bill would only improve health insurance and health care for two groups: those currently uninsured and those with low incomes. Clear majorities of respondents thought everyone else, including doctors and other health professionals and the middle class, would suffer.
Yet even given that impression, more than 4 out of 10 were willing to approve the idea of an overhaul along the lines President Obama has proposed.
What would happen if the bill's image were to improve, even slightly, in the days and weeks ahead? What if the passage, and the proliferation of positive details about the actual bill, were to lift its approval in the Gallup above 50 percent? What would be the primary Republican argument in that case?
Would they say the bill was only popular at 60 percent or 70 percent or more?
One thing is clear. Without the Democrats' narrow win in the House this past weekend, the Republicans would have won the health care argument in two ways. First, they would have blocked legislation they opposed. But beyond that, the snuffing out of the bill would mean all their arguments against it would be deemed true -- or successful, and therefore unchallenged.
Was the bill a governmental takeover of health care? We would never really know, but the argument would be remembered in these terms.
Would the bill have been a body blow to the economy? Would it have killed jobs, destroyed small businesses and undermined Medicare? Would it have bankrupted America?
Without a bill in place, all these arguments would remain unproven and impossible to disprove. We would know only that these arguments prevailed, and that the bill, in defeat, would stand guilty as charged.
Perhaps the bill in implementation will grow even less popular, as problems arise and receive extensive airing. But what would happen if, as consumers learn they will benefit, in many cases, from provisions of the bill, they start to feel better about it?
Is it possible the bill has been a more potent political weapon in prospect than it will turn out to be in reality?

 

"This is what change looks like" -Obama On Health Insurance Reform Vote

President Obama comments on the House passing the historic health care reform bill.

THE PRESIDENT:  Good evening, everybody.  Tonight, after nearly 100 years of talk and frustration, after decades of trying, and a year of sustained effort and debate, the United States Congress finally declared that America’s workers and America's families and America's small businesses deserve the security of knowing that here, in this country, neither illness nor accident should endanger the dreams they’ve worked a lifetime to achieve.


     Tonight, at a time when the pundits said it was no longer possible, we rose above the weight of our politics.  We pushed back on the undue influence of special interests.  We didn't give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear.  Instead, we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges.  We proved that this government -- a government of the people and by the people -- still works for the people.


      I want to thank every member of Congress who stood up tonight with courage and conviction to make health care reform a reality.  And I know this wasn’t an easy vote for a lot of people.  But it was the right vote.  I want to thank Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her extraordinary leadership, and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn for their commitment to getting the job done.  I want to thank my outstanding Vice President, Joe Biden, and my wonderful Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, for their fantastic work on this issue.  I want to thank the many staffers in Congress, and my own incredible staff in the White House, who have worked tirelessly over the past year with Americans of all walks of life to forge a reform package finally worthy of the people we were sent here to serve.


     Today’s vote answers the dreams of so many who have fought for this reform.  To every unsung American who took the time to sit down and write a letter or type out an e-mail hoping your voice would be heard -- it has been heard tonight.  To the untold numbers who knocked on doors and made phone calls, who organized and mobilized out of a firm conviction that change in this country comes not from the top down, but from the bottom up -- let me reaffirm that conviction:  This moment is possible because of you.


     Most importantly, today’s vote answers the prayers of every American who has hoped deeply for something to be done about a health care system that works for insurance companies, but not for ordinary people.  For most Americans, this debate has never been about abstractions, the fight between right and left, Republican and Democrat -- it’s always been about something far more personal.  It’s about every American who knows the shock of opening an envelope to see that their premiums just shot up again when times are already tough enough.  It’s about every parent who knows the desperation of trying to cover a child with a chronic illness only to be told “no” again and again and again.  It’s about every small business owner forced to choose between insuring employees and staying open for business.  They are why we committed ourselves to this cause.

     Tonight’s vote is not a victory for any one party -- it's a victory for them.  It's a victory for the American people.  And it's a victory for common sense.


     Now, it probably goes without saying that tonight’s vote will give rise to a frenzy of instant analysis.  There will be tallies of Washington winners and losers, predictions about what it means for Democrats and Republicans, for my poll numbers, for my administration.  But long after the debate fades away and the prognostication fades away and the dust settles, what will remain standing is not the government-run system some feared, or the status quo that serves the interests of the insurance industry, but a health care system that incorporates ideas from both parties -- a system that works better for the American people.


     If you have health insurance, this reform just gave you more control by reining in the worst excesses and abuses of the insurance industry with some of the toughest consumer protections this country has ever known -- so that you are actually getting what you pay for.


     If you don’t have insurance, this reform gives you a chance to be a part of a big purchasing pool that will give you choice and competition and cheaper prices for insurance.  And it includes the largest health care tax cut for working families and small businesses in history -- so that if you lose your job and you change jobs, start that new business, you’ll finally be able to purchase quality, affordable care and the security and peace of mind that comes with it.


     This reform is the right thing to do for our seniors.  It makes Medicare stronger and more solvent, extending its life by almost a decade.  And it’s the right thing to do for our future.  It will reduce our deficit by more than $100 billion over the next decade, and more than $1 trillion in the decade after that.

     So this isn’t radical reform.  But it is major reform.  This legislation will not fix everything that ails our health care system.  But it moves us decisively in the right direction.  This is what change looks like.

     Now as momentous as this day is, it's not the end of this journey.  On Tuesday, the Senate will take up revisions to this legislation that the House has embraced, and these are revisions that have strengthened this law and removed provisions that had no place in it.  Some have predicted another siege of parliamentary maneuvering in order to delay adoption of these improvements.  I hope that’s not the case.  It’s time to bring this debate to a close and begin the hard work of implementing this reform properly on behalf of the American people.  This year, and in years to come, we have a solemn responsibility to do it right.


     Nor does this day represent the end of the work that faces our country.  The work of revitalizing our economy goes on.  The work of promoting private sector job creation goes on.  The work of putting American families’ dreams back within reach goes on.  And we march on, with renewed confidence, energized by this victory on their behalf.


     In the end, what this day represents is another stone firmly laid in the foundation of the American Dream.  Tonight, we answered the call of history as so many generations of Americans have before us.  When faced with crisis, we did not shrink from our challenge -- we overcame it.  We did not avoid our responsibility -- we embraced it.  We did not fear our future -- we shaped it.


     Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.


Despite its flaws, I'd have 'held my nose' to pass reform, renowned intellectual tells Raw Story


He’s a hero of many progressives, but his enthusiasm for the passage of health care reform legislation this weekend was fairly muted.
In an interview with Raw Story, world-renowned scholar and political critic Noam Chomsky reluctantly called the bill a mildly positive step, but cautioned that it wouldn’t fix the fundamental problems with the nation's troubled system.
"The United States’ health care system is so dysfunctional it has about twice the health care costs of comparable countries and some of the worst outcomes," Chomsky told Raw Story. "This bill continues with that."
The decades-long critic of corporate power alleged that premiums won't stop rising as the package is designed in no small part to funnel money into the pockets of the health care industry. "The bill gives away a lot to insurance companies and big pharmaceutical corporations," he said.

The legislation forbids government from negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies or permitting the importation of drugs. Nor does it provide competition to private insurers, an oligopolistic industry that will maintain its impunity from antitrust laws. But despite this, Chomsky, an advocate for a single-payer system, said killing the bill wasn't a better solution.
"If I were in Congress," he said, "I’d probably hold my nose and vote for it, because the alternative of not passing it is worse, bad as this bill is. Unfortunately, that’s the reality."
"If it fails, it wouldn’t put even limited constraints on insurance companies," he explained, noting that the bill is "at least has some steps towards barring the withholding of policies from people with prior disabilities." The consumer protections from dodgy insurance practices are among the bill's most popular components.
The mandate to purchase insurance has been a central qualm of progressives and conservatives opposed to the effort. Chomsky, while admitting it’s a boon to insurance companies, called it a "step toward universality," asserting that "without some kind of mandatory coverage, nothing is going to work at all."
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor added that it’s a damning referendum on American democracy that one of the most highly supported components of the effort nationally, the public insurance option, was jettisoned. He partly blamed the media for refusing to stress how favorably it’s viewed by the populace.
"It didn't have 'political support,' just the support of the majority of the population," Chomsky quipped, "which apparently is not political support in our dysfunctional democracy."
The provision has consistently polled well, garnering the support of sixty percent of Americans across the nation in a CBS/New York Times poll released in December, days after it was eliminated from the reform package. Democratic leaders deemed it politically untenable.
"There should be headlines explaining why, for decades, what's been called politically impossible is what most of the public has wanted," Chomsky said. "There should be headlines explaining what that means about the political system and the media."