If – and it is a big if, still – the Democrats manage to pass their desperate “Any Bill Will Do” health care reform, they may be committing political suicide in the process:
O, the irony: The Democrats — who run the Congress and the White House — have to pass health care to prove they can govern. If it falls apart, after all this time, they will look weak and ineffectual. Yet while they toil long days and nights trying to put together the votes, the bill itself has morphed into something the public fears. So passage could well become a short-lived political victory.
Some numbers: According to CNN polls, almost 8 in 10 believe it will add to the deficit. When asked whether the Senate bill would help your family a resounding 75 percent said no. And will it increase your taxes? Eighty-five percent said you bet it will.
So why not have a GOP candidate in Kentucky inject health care into a state senate race? “Keep the big hand of government out of our personal health care decisions,” one Higdon ad warned ominously. One Democratic strategist familiar with the race says the ad didn’t matter much since not enough people saw it to have a real impact.
Beyond Kentucky, the Democrats also protest on health care: The issue is misunderstood, they say. We are just losing the spin war and that will change, they say. Even if all of that is true, there’s something else to understand: Once health care passes, it’s still going to be unpopular. At least until the Democrats can prove why it works, and that could take a very long time.
I pointed out another analyst making the same point last night. The American public is not misunderstanding the intent and the impact of this bill, contrary to the Democrat’s assertions. They can see a bad deal and a power grab very clearly. They can see the coming loss in quality and quantity of health care. They can see the tax increases looming. They can see the bureaucratic meddling in their most personal affairs. They can see the severe economic damage. They can see the vast increase to an already unmanageable deficit.
They can see the disaster coming.
And they will know who to blame. They will know who to punish. They will know who to exile to the wilderness.
They will know how to get this monstrosity killed by unelecting the ones who pass it and electing a Congress that listens instead of dictates.
I think your last sentence is the key: the bill is one thing, but the public is increasingly angry at the Democrats’ refusal to listen to them, the arrogance and highhandedness they’re showing to people who are supposedly their constituents. More than for the bill itself, voters will make their representatives and senators pay for that.