Thanks to the wonders of podcasting, I can now listen to NPR’s “Marketplace”:http://marketplace.publicradio.org/ while jogging practically anywhere in the world. Because of this, I had the opportunity over the weekend to hear “Megan McCartle”:http://www.theatlantic.com/megan-mcardle claim on “Friday’s Marketplace”:http://marketplace.publicradio.org/episodes/show_rundown.php?show_id=14&start_date=02-26-2010 that – and I’m paraphrasing here a bit – if the Democrats went ahead and passed healthcare without Republican support, it would cost them the House and the Senate this November. Apparently, McCartle is not the only one to hold this viewpoint, as today’s “Washington Post”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/28/AR2010022803243.html features a quote from Rep. Cantor essentially making the same point; the Post quoted him as saing that “if Democrats push the bill through on party lines, they will ‘lose their majority in Congress in November'”.
Really? Let’s parse this logic for a second here. Implicit in these claims seems to be the following two beliefs. First, if the Democrats don’t push through healthcare reform on party lines, they will hold on to their majorities in the House and the Senate. Second, if they do push healthcare through and susequently lose their majorities, it will be because of the Healthcare bill.
John has already addressed the first of these points in his prior posts on how the midterm elections will most likely largely be a function of the state of the economy (see “here”:https://themonkeycage.org/2010/02/the_economy_structures_everyth.html and “here”:https://themonkeycage.org/2010/02/does_it_matter_if_everyone_hat.html), so I’m going to set aside the question of how the Democrats would do in the 2010 midterms if they had never even brought up healthcare (answer: if unemployment is still at 10%, lousy).
Instead, I want to focus on the second question: are the Democrats somehow better off politically if they fail to pass a healthcare bill? Here are the numbers according to the most recent “Gallup Poll”:http://www.gallup.com/poll/126191/Americans-Tilt-Against-Democrats-Plans-Summit-Fails.aspx. If the two parties can not reach an agreement, then 42% of Americans favor passing the Democratic plan, and 49% oppose it. Note that that 49% could include those who want a public option, a single payer plan, etc. But either way, 42% support the plan, 49% oppose it. If the question wording is changed to include the use of reconciliation, then support drops to 39% and opposition goes up to 52%.
So if the bill is passed, it will _not_ have the support of the majority of the country. At the same time, if healthcare fails, then a significant portion of Obama’s first year(s) in office will have been wasted on a failed major policy agenda and the Democrats will be portrayed as divided, incompetent, etc. Which would you rather take into the midterm elections? The President/Congress that succeeded where Clinton, Truman, etc. had failed in the past by passing healthcare reform – but without the support of a majority of the population – or divided, incompetent, failure? Now I’m not saying that the fate of this bill will significantly impact who controls the House or Senate after the 2010 elections one way or another, but it seems to me that if it did, then _not passing_ your most meaningful domestic policy objective would ultimately be more damaging to your political prospects then passing it with the support of only 40% of the country.
