Once this bill gets out of Congress and President Obama signs it, then I really hope he is ready for a sell job for the rest of his time in office.

Let’s examine the facts. The current polling shows the public very turned off by this bill:

That alone gives the Republicans an excellent platform in 2010 and 2012. Given the fact that the good parts of the health care bill won’t really be felt for 5 years, that spells extremely bad news for Democrats and can turn into trouble at the polls.

What Obama needs to do is have a prime time press conference after signing this bill and lay out exactly what it will do for the people. No B.S. – explain the facts and explain them well. He also needs to direct his web gurus to launch a government site where people can punch in their info and get an idea of how it will affect them personally.

This is going to be the hardest sell job of his life – no questions asked.

The major problem we face is that the Republicans can easily regain control by the time this bill really takes affect and then they can start stripping out the things they don’t like. Given their track record that will mean things like the limited cost-control/new regulations put into place. They are the party of Reagan after all.

Sadly this is where the public option would have been perfect. A robust public option that started taking care of people before 2012 would have given the people something they like and something the Republicans dare not touch. Now they don’t have that, and in all honesty I don’t see Republicans getting rid of mandates.

So where does that leave us?

Well we are all screwed if Obama doesn’t sell the hell out of this bill. A Republican controlled government will see control shift back to the private sector and we will most likely still be required to purchase insurance by law, or even vouchers.

I know there is a lot of optimism on the left that “we can improve it later”, and I really hate to piss on everyone’s celebration but I am a realist. Short of some absolute miracle where the job market does a 180 in the next 10 months, the Democrats are going to suffer major losses in November. We are looking at maybe a 4-5 seat majority in the Senate and the House isn’t shaping up much better. The time for change is quickly escaping us. Once that happens that turns this bill, being sold as a building block for better reform, into an anchor around the necks of Democrats.

Sorry to be brutally honest and I seriously hope I am wrong, but this is exactly what I see happening. As things stand right now I can see us being worse off in ten years than we are now.