WASHINGTON What are the Democrats thinking?
The American people --after an exhausting year of debate and controversial legislative maneuvering --- remain deeply divided over the health insurance overhaul that likely is headed to the president's desk Sunday.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll last week found that 46 percent of those questioned said it would be better to pass President Barack Obama's plan and make changes later; 45 percent preferred not to pass it but to keep the system as it is now. Real Clear Politics' average of recent health care polls showed 49.1 percent of Americans opposed to the bill and 40.4 percent supporting it.
Yet Democrats are pushing ahead and in an election year, no less.
Political experts point to a variety of theories about the political mind-set that would lead House Democrats to cast yes votes Sunday in the face of so much opposition and political risk.
In a recent round-table discussion with regional reporters including The World-Herald, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer was asked about the pitch the administration is making to vulnerable House Democrats worried about their re-election prospects.
Pfeiffer said that passing the legislation would mean the immediate enactment of popular provisions aimed at protecting consumers from the “predatory practices of insurance companies.”
“That is something that would be a very compelling argument for folks who are on the ballot in November,” Pfeiffer said.
Democrats believe that the poll results will change in the next few months that people will come around once the sausage-making is finished and Democrats have a chance to explain the bill's provisions to the public. Talk of the horse-trading and deal brokering that come with major legislation will fade and lawmakers will be able to shift the focus to the substance of the bill. They will argue that the legislation will make people more secure and less at the mercy of profit-seeking insurance companies.
“I think it'll be a tough sell, but I assume that's where their head is,” said Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report.
Also pressing on Democrats is the thought that if health care legislation isn't passed this year, it will be a long time before it gets another chance.
Democrats currently hold large majorities on Capitol Hill, but those are widely expected to be whittled down in November. Many Democrats say that failure this year would mean it would be a long time before overhauling health care is addressed again.
Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, suggested that Democrats are feeling the weight of history.
An overhaul of health care has long been viewed as a holy grail for Democrats, with current and past presidents making it a priority.
Obama, in a speech Friday his fourth on the subject in two weeks compared the drive to pass the health care legislation to the struggle to enact Social Security and civil rights bills. He invoked the names of Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman and the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
“We have waited long enough,” Obama said. “And in just a few days, a century-long struggle will culminate in a historic vote.”
Saturday, he invited the House Democratic caucus and Senate majority leader to the White House to make a last push for his top domestic priority.
Sabato said that if Obama had not made such a concerted effort to finish the bill, congressional Democrats would have let it go.
“Still, congressional Democrats had already lost several pints of blood on this issue in the last year; they'd voted on it already,” Sabato said.
They already face attacks over health care, he said, so it would be better to take those political hits over an accomplishment than a failure.
Others say the public rewards success and will tend to rally behind Democrats if the bill is passed, because any achievement stands out against the typical partisan gridlock so common in Washington.
John Hibbing, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said he's not sure about that rationale.
He said it's clear that the public wants some sort of health care reform but questions parts of the current bill.
The public is always going to object to certain provisions within a major piece of legislation, he said.
“The political calculus is: This is only natural that people would not like specific provisions when it's presented to them, but they do want reform and this is our best chance to do it, so let's go ahead,” Hibbing said.
NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll respondents cited particular concerns with the size of the legislation and its potential for increasing the federal budget deficit. Some House Democrats were switching from “no” to “yes” last week after the latest analysis of the bill by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showed that it would trim the deficit by an estimated $138 billion over the next decade.
Duffy and others said that marketing the health care legislation will be very different state to state. A World-Herald Poll in January found that 62 percent of Nebraskans surveyed opposed the health care proposal that was approved by the Senate.
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., provided the crucial 60th vote to advance the Senate bill in December.
Nelson said last week it will be tough to sell the final legislation in Nebraska, but it might get easier once it's passed and people actually see it being implemented.
He said that was the case with Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit for senior citizens. People once were frightened by the rhetoric flying around during the debate over that legislation, but then they saw the reality.
“It wasn't the ogre that some people made it out to be,” Nelson said.
Another political consideration is the demoralizing effect that failure would have on the party's base. Polls have found that Democrats still overwhelmingly support the health care bill.
The campaign volunteers who work so hard to get out the vote by knocking on doors and making phone calls might be less likely to put in extra hours for a party that can't get its top domestic policy initiative passed even with such large congressional majorities.
Political considerations aside, Hibbing suggested one other reason why Democrats would be so committed to pushing the bill across the finish line.
“There may actually be a sense that this is the right thing to do for the country,” Hibbing said. “I'm probably wrong, but let's not automatically rule it out.”
Contact the writer:
202-662-7270, joe.morton@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
