After the first 100 days, President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress were on top of the world. The President's job ratings were in the 60s. In the Pew Research Center poll, Democrats had a 19-point edge in favorability over Republicans (59 percent favorable for Democrats, 40 percent for Republicans).
By August, the President's job approval had dropped to 51 percent in the Pew poll and the NBC News poll. The Democrats' lead over the Republicans in favorability had dropped to 9 points -- entirely because of a sharp drop in positive opinion of the Democratic Party.
It's not the economy, stupid. While the nation's economic gloom has certainly not lifted, people don't think things have gotten markedly worse. In the August Washington Post-ABC News poll, more people said President Obama's economic program was making the economy better (43 percent) rather than worse (23 percent). And more Americans expect the recession to be over in the next year (28 percent in February, 49 percent in August).
The problem is health care, of course. By every available measure, confidence in President Obama's health care policy has diminished. In the Post-ABC poll, Americans approved the President's handling of health care by nearly two to one in April (57 to 29 percent). Now they narrowly disapprove, 50 to 46. In the NBC poll, the number who think President Obama's health care plan is "a bad idea'' went from 26 percent in April to 42 percent in August. Only 36 percent now say it's "a good idea.''
President Bill Clinton's experience stands as a warning to Democrats. During Clinton's first two years in office, the economy actually got better. The unemployment rate dropped from 7.4 percent when Clinton got elected in 1992 to 5.6 percent in November 1994. And so what? The Democrats still got blown away in the 1994 midterm. Not because of the economy, but because of voter anger over taxes and gun control and gays in the military and midnight basketball and, above all, health care.
The big surprise is that the backlash over health care reform came as such a surprise. The force of voter anger seemed to astound both parties. President Obama's formidable political movement failed to mobilize until the threat was in their face. Some Republicans seemed ready to work with the Administration until they saw the ferocity of the protesters. Those who believe the protests were staged by the GOP are giving the Republican Party too much credit. They're not that well organized.
It's not that the public rejects health care reform. It's still a popular idea. The Kaiser Health Care poll continues to show solid support for requiring all Americans to have health insurance, with subsidies for those who can't afford it (68 percent). And the public favors requiring employers to offer health insurance to their workers (68 percent). People even support the idea of a public option -- "a government-administered public health insurance option similar to Medicare to compete with private health insurance plans'' (59 percent).
When asked specifically about changes to the health care system being proposed by President Obama and Congress, the public is split. But what matters is not just numbers. It's intensity. And the opposition is more intense: 40 percent say they're "strongly'' opposed while 27 percent are "strongly'' supportive." In the Pew poll, 38 percent of Republicans say they'd be angry if health care reform passes. Only 13 percent of Democrats say they'd be angry if health care reform fails.
Recriminations have already started. The Obama Administration overcompensated for President Clinton's failure 15 years ago. President Obama did not turn the issue over to a secretive task force headed by an unelected First Lady and a team of policy wonks (remember Ira Magaziner?). Instead, Obama let the Democrats in Congress come up with a plan. Or more precisely, several plans, all making their way through congressional committees. That approach gave the President more options and greater flexibility. But he has no actual proposal for Democrats to rally around. No one is sure if President Obama even intends to fight for a public option.
Recriminations are, of course, a favorite Washington pastime, but the real reasons for the backlash are deeply rooted in American culture. In two places, to be precise -- ideology and psychology.
Distrust of government is a core value of American populism. The people are "us.'' Government is "them.'' Distrust of government is embedded in the Constitution, which was written by men who disliked central government (King George III) and intended it to be as weak as possible. Hence, the elaborate system of checks and balances and separation of powers and the many ways in which decisive action can be blocked. In fact, the Constitution replaced an earlier document, the Articles of Confederation, in which government was so weak it was unworkable.
Distrust of government is a principle of faith among conservatives these days, but the sentiment is not limited to the right. For the first century of American politics, Democrats were the anti-government party. Then, as now, Democrats were the party of the poor and the oppressed, but government was then seen as a bastion of privilege. Reaganism can't hold a candle to Thomas Jefferson's and Andrew Jackson's attacks on centralized power. What changed was the discovery -- first by Progressives, then by New Deal Democrats -- that government could be used to attack privilege and promote economic and social justice.
The scholar Seymour Martin Lipset used the analogy of loaded dice to describe how values work. Once certain values are loaded by defining historical experiences, they will come up again and again and shape later events. That is happening now with health care reform. The anti-government backlash started building up even before Barack Obama became President, when President Bush endorsed the Wall Street bailouts. The backlash intensified with the automobile industry bailout, the economic stimulus plan, the energy bill and mounting deficits. Health care reform gave conservatives the opportunity to light the fuse.
The wonder is that American government actually does work, even though it was designed not to. It works when there is a crisis -- when an overwhelming sense of public urgency overwhelms blockages and lubricates the system. That is supposed to be the case now with health care. But it is not. Sure, there's sense of crisis in the country, but it is over jobs more than health care. When Americans are asked to name the major problems facing the nation, the economy towers over everything else. Health care ranks third, after the economy and government spending.
That's where psychology comes into play. President Obama has put out a mighty effort to create a sense of crisis, warning voters about the cost of inaction. "If you're worried about rationed care, higher costs, denied coverage or bureaucrats getting between you and your doctor, then you should know that's what's happening right now,'' the President said in his weekly address on August 15. In the NBC poll, only 24 percent of Americans said they thought the quality of their health care would get better if the Obama plan passes. Forty percent thought it would get worse.
Americans overwhelmingly say they're satisfied with their health care (83 percent in a CNN poll) and their health insurance (74 percent). A whopping 71 percent are satisfied with both. What's striking is that nearly half of that "satisfied majority'' still favor health care reform (44 percent in the CNN poll). They believe all Americans should be covered. Their view is, if people don't have health insurance, the government should see to it that they can get it, even if it means taxing the rich. But they see no reason why that means their own health care has to change.
The psychology of health care is not driven by economic rationality. People rarely choose a doctor or a hospital or a treatment based on price. (Medications, yes.) In the current health care system, costs are largely hidden from consumers. Try telling employees that their employer-paid health care benefits should be taxed as income. It's income they never see. Economists argue that rising health insurance costs for employers have been supressing wages for years. But most workers are unaware of the real and growing costs of those benefits. Somebody else pays most of them.
People's sense of security about their health care may be false and irrational. But it is real. Just like the warning Members of Congress hear over and over again from seniors at town hall meetings: "You tell the government to keep its hands off my Medicare!''
Does this mean President Obama's health care agenda is doomed? No. A lot of people continue to support reform, and the Democrats have solid majorities in Congress. They don't want to pull the plug on health care reform as the Democratic Congress did in 1994. For one thing, they don't want to bring down their own President. The failure of health care reform in 1994 forced President Clinton to shrink his agenda from big ambitions to protecting the safety net. For another thing, congressional Democrats know who paid the political price of failure in 1994. They did.
Some version of health care reform will very likely pass, possibly including a public option. But it will pass on a partisan vote. What's wrong with that? Democrats won spectacular victories in 2006, when they took control of Congress, and in 2008, when they took the White House. If that's not a mandate to govern, what is?
But for a major policy initiative to be politically secure, it needs a bipartisan base. Like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which actually got a higher proportion of support from Republicans than from Democrats (in those days, there were still a lot of conservative southern Democrats). Any policy that passes on a partisan vote is subject to constant sniping and threats of reversal when the other party gains power.
President Obama will probably win on health care reform. But voter backlash has steeled the Republican Party to mount a full- scale opposition. Victory on health care will be a triumph of the partisan culture that President Obama pledged to defeat.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author, they do not represent the views of Third Way
Kathleen Wells: Congressman Waxman: What Americans Need to Know About Health Care
In this interview, Waxman says death panels a "despicable lie."
"Victory on health care will be a triumph of the partisan culture that President Obama pledged to defeat."
That is nonsense. You could just as easily say that "Defeat on health care will be a triumph of the partisan culture that President Obama pledged to defeat." Why do you associate partisanship only with a health care victory when it is the Republicans who are lock-step against reform?
Also, the notion that partisanship is necessary or the policy will be in jeopardy in later years doesn't hold up. Republicans opposed both Social Security and Medicare, yet the Democratic victories on those programs are universally supported today. I believe the same will be true following the passage of health care reform.
Which is why the Republicans are still gunning for social security?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html
This should scare both sides of the issues. Today it might effect the Conservatives but one day it might effect the Progressives depending on who isn power at the time.
The government always seeks power and this is simply another power grab.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington
Were you two around as howls of fury went up when telecoms were given immunity for illegally helping the government spy on US citizens? Or were you cheering the corporations and the snoopy feds on, like you're cheering on the health care profiteers this morning?
Democrats need to realize the cost of not doing HCR is so profound that they must do it or risk even more terrible consequences not only on this but on other issues if they fail. It will tell the right that this kind of racist and threatening opposition works. And it will bring more and more of it until all we are left with are town hall mobs and a country in ruins.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
Sometimes, the Gov't has to lead the people. Ignore their confusion and mis-informed minds -- pass health care reform. Take a risk on doing something significant for a change.
Vulnerable to future partisan sniping if passed on a party line vote? Yeah, right -- give the public a few years of no more recissions, arbitrary denials, lifetime caps and give us public option. You'll never be allowed to take it back.
One thing that does need to happen, though? Some of these reforms, if not all, need to happen NOW, not 2013 or some other bogus future date, which is nothing but a sellout to the GOP.
Why don't you become a real progressive?
The problem we face is plutocracy in America, and anything less that a rigorous progressive, populist remedy is just more disease.
We call that process, "Learning". You'll find a definition for that word at dictionary.com as well.
They dropped because he campaigned on REFORM and we are seeing CORRUPTION.
If he keeps coddling Corruptors on Wall Street, the CIA, and from Big Bad HealthCo, his numbers will keep plummeting.
If he champions REFORM, his polls will go through the roof.
As far as conservatives distrusting government, that depends who's in power. For eight years, conservatives trusted every ridiculous lie of the Bush administration: There were WMDs in Iraq -- and many of them still believe that's true, that they remain hidden somewhere in the Syrian desert. Conservatives defended all the Bush administration's lawbreaking, like all the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, like that government-sponsored torture in violation of half a dozen laws was just fine. And to this day when Sarah Palin lies by warning against "death panels" conservatives are happy to agree with her lying nonsense.
Finally, Mr. Schneider, I wouldn't worry that if health care passes by a partisan vote -- and I'm not at all sure it will pass at all -- that it will be threatened with reversal whenever the Republicans get back in power. I don't really think that once virtually every American has health insurance, any political party will ever dare try to take it away. And, I'll bet when you think about it, you don't either.
That's the reason the R's are so desperate to force "Obama's Waterloo", they know they're on the ropes after the Bush/Cheney debacle, and successful public health care, opposed in full throat by all Republicans, will be the knockout punch that fractures their party.
Why Democrats don't see this is beyond me, but i suspect their vision is clouded by green...
Even our President's favorite refrain has become "No You Can't".
Centrists are enemies and obstructionists just as surely as any Republican.
We need to purge the Centrists out of the Democratic Party.
Not a penny, not a vote, but a primary challenge for every opponent of an extremely strong public option. We will win the public option and then we will sweep the self-identified garbage out of the Democratic party.
We will not forgive and we will not forget plutocratic treachery at this moment in our history.
I got a phone call from an Obama organizer two nights ago. He wanted to know whether he could put me on a list saying I supported the President's health plan. I said, "What plan?" The answer was three principles.... Lower costs, people can keep what they have.... I forget the third, something weak and vague. I told the organizer that I thought these principles were so general and inadequate that I could not agree. I told him I want HR 676 or an extremely strong public option that could lead to HR 676, and that I consider anything less to be a complete failure and betrayal. The man muttered something about how the lobbies are so powerful. He didn't say I was wrong, he merely said, "No We Can't." This is why Obama's approval is dropping and why his "reform" has so little support. The phone call made me sick.
Health insurance reform will preserve the rights of people and doctors, reserve more money for health care providers and make health care more affordable and more available.
He has tried to force massive bills through that congress had no idea what was in them. When the health care bills stalled it allowed the public to see what was happening and he is now being exposed for what he is.
The fact that the Apollo Group wrote the bills and they are militant radicals and self proclaimed Communists the people are now seeing and they doot like it.
Why Do so may blindly follow this man down a path of giving up their freedoms and allowing government to control every aspect of their lives? It is so very sad to see what Obama and his radical friends believe and are doing to our country. They want power and that seems to be all this is about.
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong
enough to take everything you have." Thomas Jefferson
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
George Washington