According to the latest CBS News Poll, President Obama’s healthcare bill has lost seven points in popularity since it passed last month. When the legislation passed, it won approval from 41 percent of Americans according to a CBS poll taken at the time. Now, the network reports that only 34 percent back the legislation. Since July, backing for the plan stood at 49 percent in CBS’ polling.
(The network also found that Obama’s overall job approval is down to 44 percent, also five points lower than CBS found last month).
The comforting assumption among Democrats that all they had to do was to pass the bill and their fortunes would turn around is being dashed by the data. Just as we predict in our new book "2010: Take Back America — a Battle Plan," the Obamacare bill will drag the Democrats ever further down until they shed that particular albatross from around their necks.
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Obamacare is a gift to the Republican Party that keeps on giving. The supposed benefits of the legislation start kicking in at the beginning of 2014 — far to distant to be of much political use today. But the defects start showing up right away.
Insurance premiums are rising in the aftermath of the legislation’s passage. Doctors are retiring or closing their Medicare practices. Companies are taking write downs in their expected profits due to the higher healthcare costs imposed by the legislation. Soon, Medicare patients will begin to meet the word “no” when they seek care.
And then will come the most deadly reality — that Obamacare is doing nothing to create jobs, lower unemployment or deal with the national economic crisis. The president will be seen to have spent his entire first year and a half in office pushing for legislation that means nothing to the central problem the nation faces — its economy — unless it is to make things worse.
The deflation in expectations of improvement in healthcare, the manifestation of the harms of the legislation, and the continuation of our unemployment woes all will continue to drag Obama and the Democrats down, down, down.
© Dick Morris & Eileen McGann