health care reform

I’ve been reading more on that Gallup poll from yesterday that shows more Americans now supporting health care reform than opposing it. For a refresher, here’s the results:

What’s interesting is the headline accompanying this poll:

By Slim Margin, Americans Support Healthcare Bill's Passage

I don’t really remember pollsters considering a 9% margin “slim”. Perhaps all the talk of the “60% majority” of the Senate has confused the people at Gallup.

Then we have those on the right trying to spin this away. For example, here is Allahpundit:

And so it came to be, after a day’s worth of nonstop coverage of History!, that ObamaCare’s gotten a bounce.

What is really interesting here is when you look back at recent history. In the heat of last summer, during those viral townhall meetings, we saw support for health care reform plummet. There was 24/7 news coverage of the yelling and screaming, but if you ask anyone on the right that coverage had nothing to do with the wavering support. Sorry guys but you can’t have it both ways here.

And since this is such a great day and since I love rubbing salt in the wounds, here’s a picture from the GOP’s pre-signing press conference:

So fitting.

Very interesting and if it is true then health care reform is a done deal.

Adding …. Brian Baird has also announced that he will be supporting the bill now. 

I can’t help but laugh every time I hear some Republican say “passing this bill [health care reform] will cost the Democrats in November”. I keep wondering to myself if Coach K is calling up John Calipari and saying “if we meet in final four and you run a zone defense, it will cost you dearly”.

But today I got thinking more about this and translating it to when Republicans controlled everything, like they did for a majority of the last decade. Is that why the Republicans never tried to push through legislation they have campaigned on for decades? For example:

Republicans are “small government”, yet the government grew at record rates under their rule.

They have been against abortion for all these years, yet when have they actually tried to outlaw it?

Or how about taxes? We hear Republicans all the time crowing about across the board tax cuts, yet the only tax cuts they ever did was for the rich.

The Republican solution to health care for years has been tort reform, dating back to at least the last time the issue came up – during the Clinton years. Yet with the Republicans holding control of the entire government, they never once tried to do anything about it.

So this brings me to the big question – has the Republicans been erring on the side of caution when they have control? Sure the issues above make great campaign talking points, but are they afraid that any real action will lead to an electorate peril?

The Democrats are on the verge of passing legislation they have been advocating since the days of FDR. Now it is suddenly “politically dangerous”. They are working towards delivering on a major campaign promise from 2008, and that will cost them? If you really believe this, then you believe that our government is incapable of change, and that leaves us in a very bad position as a nation. A nation that can’t change is a nation that will be left behind.

Here is the reason we shouldn’t let health care reform become law:

Leading a revolt against President Barack Obama’s healthcare legislation over abortion has been a “living hell” for Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.).

The telephone lines in his Washington and district offices have been “jammed” and he’s gotten more than 1,500 faxes and countless e-mails — most of which he says don’t come from his constituents.

The fight has taken a toll on his wife, who has disconnected the phone in their home to avoid harassment.

“All the phones are unplugged at our house — tired of the obscene calls and threats. She won’t watch TV,” Stupak said during an hourlong interview with The Hill in his Rayburn office. “People saying they’re going to spit on you and all this. That’s just not fun.”

Yes – the poor Stupak household has gone through hell because of it. I’m sure their pain has been much worse than the pain of the millions of uninsured Americans, or those who paid for insurance for years only to get sick and dropped. They don’t know pain like you – right Bart?

What a sorry sack.

Jane Hamsher has been busted working with the teabaggers to kill health care reform. She can call herself a progressive, but I sure as hell never will.

Dennis Kucinich is holding a press conference tomorrow morning to announce his vote on the health care reform bill. Just now on MSNBC, Howard Fineman just reported that his sources are telling him that Kucinich will announce he is supporting the bill now. If this is the case, then this is very big news and a key hurdle to final passage.

The biggest reason I have been very pessimistic about the possibility of us seeing health care reform this year is because of the problems in the Senate. I know a lot of people have maintained that we already have a bill that passed the Senate, but we do have to remember that our Congress is bi-camel, composed of two houses with equal power. That’s where our problem lies. The House, that actually functions in a democratic nature 99% of the time is really leery of putting trust into the broken Senate. That’s causing things like this:

Dem Rep Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who voted for the House health bill last time, tells his local WLUK-TV that he doesn’t trust the Senate to fix its bill via reconciliation and suggests he’s leaning against:

“I have made the case to the speaker and also to the White House that we should take small pieces, small bites,” Kagen said. “In the practice of medicine, I can’t give a child a big pill. What do we do? We cut it up into pieces. Let’s find things we can agree on.”

Honestly, if I was in Kagen’s shoes I would probably say the same thing. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I really dislike the Senate bill, but if it could be fixed then I would be happy with it. Sadly though, with the current state of the Senate and it’s lack of leadership, how can anyone trust them to fix something so important?