The closer the Democratic Congress' radical health package gets to enactment, the less popular it becomes. The American people smell a rat.'It's not going to be a perfect bill, but it's going to be a very important starting point," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said on CNN over the weekend after 60 senators voted to open debate on radically transforming the U.S. health care system. That fact is what is increasingly spooking the American people, as well it should, is: Where will this massively expensive "starting point" lead us?
The Democrats' health care revolution, which right now looks like it will include a government-run option that could cripple the health insurance industry, is sinking in approval. The newest Rasmussen poll finds public support down to 38% -- falling for the first time below 41%. Of the 56% who now oppose the plan, 43% are "strongly opposed." Among senior citizens, 60% are against it.
People clearly don't believe the hype about this plan. Only 16% say they think it will lower health care costs -- one of its well-advertised purposes -- with 60% saying it will increase costs. And 54% think quality of care will decline. Rasmussen also found that 63% want a guarantee that no one be forced to change his or her coverage. That's the wrong question; the onerous new regulations will change the world of health insurance even without a public option.
The president said it countless times: "If you like the health coverage you have, you can keep it." But in this new world your current premiums will skyrocket; the new regs make that unavoidable. Moreover, your employer may change your plan, or find a way to drop coverage.
In that new world, you may well stop liking the health coverage you have -- and not like the alternatives much either.
This same poll suggests that the people understand this: 66% say more free-market competition will lower health costs more effectively than government.
The voters also know -- as does the Congressional Budget Office -- that the less-than-a-trillion-dollars assurances being bandied about by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are right out of Alice in Wonderland. Republicans say $2.5 trillion is a more realistic price tag.
The people also know that the charges from Sen. Chuck Schumer and his colleagues of GOP status-quoism, that Republicans "haven't put any alternative on the floor," are bunk.
Since, as Rasmussen found, two-thirds of voters think market solutions will lower costs, the party running Congress has no interest in letting the GOP float money-saving ideas such as tort reform to rein in all those trial-lawyer Democratic Party contributors. Or like opening the doors to interstate health insurance competition.
Here's the proof: The process has degenerated into taxpayer-financed payoffs for moderate Democrats who don't want to be held accountable for wrecking the private insurance that 200 million Americans are happy to have. Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's wad of cash, for instance, has been fattened to $300 million.
What a sorry spectacle it will be if Americans allow their elected representatives to be bribed into buying the country a one-way ticket toward socialized medicine.