Since last June, Rasmussen has been tracking voters' opinion on the healthcare reform bill being voted on today. I haven't seen them use a chart, so the above is my contribution to their work. Opinion was initially divided, but in recent months it has become clear that a majority of voters oppose the bill:
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone poll, taken Friday and Saturday nights, shows that 41% of likely voters favor the health care plan. Fifty-four percent (54%) are opposed. These figures have barely budged in recent months.The House is working furiously to pass this major piece of legislation, despite the fact that it is unanimously opposed by Republicans, and opposed by a majority of voters. This is rather astounding, to put it mildly. Should Pelosi & Co., succeed in passing the bill today, it will be immediately challenged on a number of constitutional fronts, and it will undoubtedly be the focus of the November elections if it is not repealed before then. There is no shortage of pundits that predict major Democratic losses in November, whatever the outcome of today's vote.
Why are they doing this? Several possibilities: they are out of touch with mainstream America; they are elitists and they know better what is good for us than we do; they are hell-bent on expanding the role of government; there are too many corrupt politicians who will vote for anything if given a sufficiently large bribe in the form of goodies for their constituents; the system is broken; all of the above.
The silver lining to this cloud is that healthcare reform will likely prove to be the high-water mark for Big Government.
There is another reason they are doing it. It has been a huge item on the liberal agenda for more than a generation and there may never be another opportunity like this in a very long time. If they can pass it they will regardless of the price.
ReplyDeleteIncidently I am one who opposes it.
Looks like it's a done deal at this moment.
ReplyDeleteWay to go, Obama voters. Now we all get to reap the whirlwind of your stupidity you thought was sophistication.
But hey, at least we avoided Sarah Palin and her grubby Wasilla ice rink, right?
Scott,
ReplyDeletePerhaps it's the high water mark, but I'm not sure how the water is going to recede. From what I understand, it's going to be very difficult to repeal this Obamacare trash.
What do you think the odds are of an eventual financial collapse at this point?
Obamacare: Idaho Law Now Requires the Attorney General to Sue
ReplyDeletehttp://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2010/03/17/obamacare-idaho-law-now-requires-the-attorney-general-to-sue/
Then it gets more interesting: Obamacare: Virginia Secedes From Mandatory Purchase
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2010/03/18/obamacare-virginia-secceeds-from-mandatory-purchase/
There are 32 more state bills pending right now with like-kind language.
This will be a textbook example of the unintended consequences of public policy intended to enhance societal welfare. There are too many separate economic issues they are trying to address at the same time.
ReplyDeleteMatthew:
ReplyDeleteExcellent point.
Progressives generally address subjects in a categorical context and reject incremental context. The only time you will see a progressive use the incremental argument is for their long term view of creating a socialist state through incremental insidious change.
They also enjoy making the argument about the “status quo”. That what works now and has worked well in the past is somehow not the correct way and hence the “status quo”. Just because it works and has been working for a long time is not the way their anointed vision works. Hence if it does not fit their vision, then it doesn’t work, and hence it becomes the “status quo” argument.
If anything ever needed addressed in an incremental fashion its health care. Many things currently work. Other things need improved. Pick a sub-section that needs improvement and improve that sub-section.
However, it basically becomes the anointed progressive political class that wants to create things in its own self image on a categorical basis.
Here is a quote from a blog which, like much I read, is difficult to categorize in the Right/Left schema. It is called The Archdruid Report, and my guess is that most here would call it left-wing. So be it. Here, then, is the view from the "left":
ReplyDelete"Meanwhile the Obama administration has decided to give Congress back to the Republicans in the upcoming elections. I can think of no other way of describing Obama’s fixation on ramming through a health care bill that is not merely deeply unpopular, but one of the most absurd pieces of legislation in recent memory as well. How else to describe an attempt to deal with the fact that half the American people can’t afford health insurance by requiring them, under penalty of law, to pay for it anyway? In the process, this bill promises to take tens of billions of dollars a year out of the pockets of American families – during the worst economic conditions since the 1930s, mind you – to benefit a health insurance industry that already ranks as one of the most greedy and corrupt institutions in American public life. You’d think that a party that has ridden into power twice now on a wave of protest would know better than to adopt the most unpopular policies of the party it ousted, and then fritter away its remaining political capital on a disastrously misconceived notion of health care reform. Yet Clinton did that, and Obama’s repeating his mistake; since he’s doing it in the midst of an economic debacle on the grand scale, he’s unlikely to wriggle out of the consequences as adeptly as his predecessor."
The Republicans will take the House in 2010 and by 2012 will control the Senate. Obamacare can be repealed as long as the increased taxes and Medicare cuts are in place but people have not yet benefited from the subsidies. If Obama vetoes repeal, a Republican will be elected to replace him.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime there will be court challenges and Republican efforts to obstruct the implementation by denying appropriations.
From Investors' Business Daily: 20 ways Obamacare will take away our freedoms.
ReplyDeletePaul: Thanks for the link. I'd encourage everyone to read about the loss of our freedoms and get outraged in the process. We need to spread this word.
ReplyDeleteWhile i do believe this is the high water for big government....I
ReplyDeleteam not convinced this is going to yield anything more than the usual
25 to 30 gains for a party out of power in the House of Representatives...the Midwest which
i believe is the key doesn't anything out of the norm in reaction...