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Democrats’ Health Care Strategy: Hide the Defeat

by

The polls have been going against the Democrats’ various schemes to overhaul our nation’s health care system since last summer.  They’ve had to pay off various Senators to secure their votes.  They’ve lost the editorial pages of the MSM.  House Democrats are attempting to dodge an up-or-down vote on the Senate bill.

And still they press on.

Wonder if one day we’ll uncover some memo from a White House operative to his counterpart on the Hill that they need to “hide the defeat”  of their efforts to overhaul our nation’s health care system.

If they pass it now, they’ll only prolong this divisive debate; it could well be the defining issue of not just the 2010 elections, but the 2012 elections as well which means a full term for the junior Senator from Massachusetts and new Republican Senators in New Jersey, Pennsylvania (in addition to Pat Toomey), Virginia, Florida, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota (in addition to John Hoeven), Montana, New Mexico and Washington State.  That should make Democratic filibusters impossible.

Comments

  1. If they pass it now, they’ll only prolong this divisive debate

    But the GOP would not be able to do anything until 2013 at the earliest. So don’t comfort yourself with the thought of GOP election victories to come. ObamaCare is evil, it must be stopped, and if it isn’t stopped, we all lose – all Americans.

  3. “The polls have been going against the Democrats’ various schemes”

    I guess we should just call you “Baghdad Dan” or something….

    Today’s, Wall St. Journal poll:

    Q25 Do you think it would be better to pass Barack Obama’s health care plan and make its changes to the health care system or to not pass this plan and keep the current health care system?

    Better to pass this plan, make these changes ……….. 46
    Better to not pass this plan, keep current system …… 45
    Neither (VOL) …………………………………………………. 4
    Not sure …………………………………………………………. 5

  4. Oh, and Tano, is this the Wall Street Journal poll you’re talking about?

    The Wall Street Journal/NBC survey found that opinions have solidified around the health plan, with 48% calling it a “bad idea” and 36% viewing it as a “good idea.” That gap is consistent with surveys dating to the fall.

    Guess it’s time to call you Pollyanna, seeing only what you want to see. With more people calling it a bad idea than a good idea, that sure does sound like people going against the Democratic schemes.

  5. If tano is right why aren’t the leftist and liberal Democrats PROUDLY supporting Obamacare and proudly VOTING on the bill?
    Instead they are using soviet style tactics pretending to vote in a bill. Disgraceful,
    who’s shredding the Constitution now? Shame.

  7. Hey Dan, thanks for pointing that out. I wasn’t going to gloat or rub it in, but since you want to play dumb, lets parse this out.

    Is the bill good? 36% yes.
    Should it pass? 46% yes.

    How to make sense of this? Seems pretty obvious. As I have so generously spent my time trying to explain to you guys, over and over again, there is some significant percentage of people who do not like the bill, because it is not liberal enough.

    Unfortunately, the WSJ and NBC chose not to address this question directly, but here we see a pretty good indirect measure of just how many people are in that camp. 10% of the people think the bill is bad, but it should be passed anyway. Why? Obviously – it is bad because it does not go far enough. But push comes to shove – vote for the bill or no – the answer is yes – vote for the bill and try to do more later.

    This number – 10% – is pretty consistent with those polls that have actually asked the question directly – why are you opposed to the bill.

    Is this finally getting through your thick skull? A plurality at least, most likely a majority of Americans SUPPORT Obamacare or something more liberal. Your view is a MINORITY view.

    Yes, it is close – I cannot deny that. But it tips in our favor. And I will go out on a limb here – once the bill passes, and all the fear-mongering nonsense coming from your side is exposed, then support for this bill will tick upwards, relentlessly. I’d guess it hits 70% before the end of Obama’s second term.

  8. Um, Tano, you’ve got one question from one poll swaying it should pass. And let’s use your 46% for the sake of argument. No bill so significant has ever passed with the barest plurality of popular support.

    And that plurality based on one question in one poll. So, please, Tano, remove the blinders from your eyes and see what even the House Democrats see–that this bill ain’t popular. If it were so popular, even Nancy Pelosi says she likes the Slaughter rule because people don’t have to vote on the bill they’d be deeming passed.

    No, it doesn’t tip anything in your favor. And the only evidence you have for more people supporting it after it passes is the rhetoric of the Obama machine, er, your talking points.

  10. Actually Dan, I cannot believe that you do not know better than that. The notion that the House is trying to avoid an explicit vote on Obamacare is completely absurd. Are you forgetting – these House members ALREADY VOTED for Obamacare – WITH a public option. There is no hiding for them.

    What they are trying to avoid – what the whole “deem passed” maneuver is about is their hope to avoid a recorded vote on the UNAMENDED Senate version of the bill. The one with all the Cornhusker – Lousiana stuff in it – y’know the stuff that is coming OUT of the bill. The problem for them, is that they have to vote FOR the Senate bill before they can amend the Senate bill. So technically – they have to vote in favor of all the things that they are going to vote against a day later – things they do not support.

    And of course, given the nature of politics, and the intellectual honesty of Republicans – they know they will be charged with voting for something even though they actually voted against it, and it is not in the final bill.

    That is the only reason they are toying with the idea of avoiding the explicit vote. But you know that….

    [Tano, trying to have a conversation with you is like communicating with a recorded message. You come to a Republican blog and smear Republicans and expect us to get/sympathize with your points. And this from a party which has been telling us all along the Republicans have no plan.

    So, don’t lecture me about intellectual honesty. If the Democrats really want an open process, then, why aren’t do they do what is normally done to bridge the gap between House and Senate legislation–have a conference committee hammer out the differences?

    Please, Tano, stop repeating talking points and start engaging. And please tell me why a solid majority of Americans (something like 2/3rd) in most polls either wants Congress to start over on health care–or scrap the whole thing altogether. –Dan]

  11. Dan – it is not just one poll. The polling is actually rather consistent.

    Early March AP poll:

    “In general, do you support, oppose or neither support nor oppose the health care reform plans being discussed in Congress?”

    Support – 41
    Oppose – 43
    Feel free to adjust these numbers however you like to account for those who oppose because the bill is not liberal enough.

    Maybe this question can help guide your thoughts…

    “Who do you trust to do a better job of handling health care: the Democrats or the Republicans?”

    Democrats – 48
    Republicans – 37

    Ipsos Poll – late Feb

    “As of right now, do you favor or oppose the health care reform proposals presently being discussed?”

    Favor – 41
    Oppose – 47

    BUT – “”You said you are opposed to the health care reform proposals presently being discussed. Is that because you favor health care reform overall but think the current proposals don’t go far enough to reform health care; OR you oppose health care reform overall and think the current proposals go too far in reforming health care?”

    Dont go far enough – 37
    Go too far – 54

    Got that? 37% of the 47% who oppose the bill do so because it is not liberal enough! That means the parsed out answer to the original question is

    Oppose – not liberal enough – 17
    Support – 41
    Oppose – too liberal – 30 (at best, giving you all the “don’t knows”)

    I see that as 48-41 for my side, when push comes to shove, or it comes election time. Or just if you want an accurate sense of where the American people are.

  12. Ooops thats 58-30 for my side – sorry for that – its been a long day.

    Funny, thats the numbers that we consistently saw for support for the public option. Hmmmm

    [then, if it’s so popular, why won’t the Democrats include in a bill crafted through a conference committee? -Dan]

  13. Tano, no one takes the IPSOS poll seriously. You’re deluding yourself, Tano. You can twist the numbers any way you like, but that doesn’t change the facts.

    You keep pulling out the outlier polls, Tano.

    If Democrats were so clear they had a majority in favor, why then not get the bill the normal way? And then persuade one of the two liberal Republican Senators from Maine to vote for cloture.

    Why is this all being hacked out in back rooms, with special deals?

  14. Mhm.

    The notion that the House is trying to avoid an explicit vote on Obamacare is completely absurd.

    Followed by:

    What they are trying to avoid – what the whole “deem passed” maneuver is about is their hope to avoid a recorded vote on the UNAMENDED Senate version of the bill.

    So Tano screams and whines that they are not trying to avoid a vote even as it admits they are trying to avoid a vote.

    And this was the ultimate delusion:

    I see that as 48-41 for my side, when push comes to shove, or it comes election time.

    Three words to answer that: Senator Scott Brown (R-MA).

    Barack Obama went to Massachusetts and shrieked that anyone who voted for Scott Brown was a racist misogynist Nazi teabagger who wanted to kill ObamaCare.

    Scott Brown won in a landslide.

    Your attempts to manipulate polls are lies, Tano. The American people have already voted against ObamaCare. You simply are desperate, seeing the end of your Barack Obama, the end of your government propaganda contract, and the beginnings of a long life in the Federal prison system.

    And what’s really funny is how you cower and run away from me. That’s typical; you, like your pedophile and child rapist Obama, are scared of decent and intelligent people.

  15. That is the only reason they are toying with the idea of avoiding the explicit vote US Constitution. But you know that….

    Where’s that “intellectual honesty”, dumbass?

  16. The whole point of “deem passed” is that *IT WAS NEVER FRAKKING PASSED* by that part of Congress.

    So “deem”, in this context, means “let’s pretend”. But darned if I can find a clause in the Constitution to allow pretending.

  17. By JOHN FUND

    The Democratic spin explaining why polls show the public opposed to their health care bill is that voters actually like the individual pieces of the bill but have been turned off by the messy process.

    Yesterday, Joel Benenson, a pollster for the Democratic National Committee, reported the results of his own survey done for the Service Employees International Union. It claims the difficulty liberals are having in selling health-care reform “centers squarely on perceptions of a breakdown in the legislative process, exemplified by deal-cutting and special deals for the constituents of key swing Senators.”

    But it appears that Democrats are ignoring their own findings. Last week, President Obama backed away from his earlier demand that lawmakers’ special deals be stripped out of the bill. Then there’s Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who yesterday endorsed a parliamentary maneuver under which the House would “deem” the Senate’s health care bill approved without the House voting on it.

    Ms. Pelosi actually told reporters: “Nobody wants to vote for the Senate bill.” Her scheme to allow House members to escape political responsibility even drew the ire of the Washington Post editorial page, which has strongly backed health care reform: “What is intended as a final sprint threatens to turn into something unseemly and, more important, contrary to Democrats’ promises of transparency and time for deliberation.”

    In ramming through an unpopular 2,700-page health care bill using brute force tactics, Democrats are in danger of passing what amounts to the longest suicide note in history. Their own pollsters are telling them the public has rebelled against their tactics. So their response is to press their foot down even harder on the gas pedal. We’ll see how that works out for them.

  18. I always enjoy the ‘people like the individual parts’ arguement.

    I like Brussle Sprouts, I like chocolate. I don’t like them together. *rolls eyes*

    Is it me or is global warming boy getting more and more shrill?