Tim Fernholz on how the battle for health care reform resembles the battle over the stimulus, and what it means for the future of the effort:
The news of late on the president’s agenda has been stalls and difficulties; a much ballyhooed July 18 Washington Post poll found public approval of the president’s handling of health care, his top priority, dropping below 50 percent — to 49 — for the first time. Never mind that the president hasn’t, technically, released a health-care reform plan, choosing instead to articulate central principles and endorse one specific mechanism, a public insurance option.
It’s not that the president’s agenda is overly ambitious, despite cries of “liberal overreach” — a mysterious creature that hasn’t been seen in the White House since it slunk out in 1968, never to return. Instead, the vagaries of congressional procedure are slowing its progress. The lack of a unified message provides openings for Republicans to attack the half-finished legislation emerging from the process — criticizing, for instance, the high price of one bill before cost-cutting measures were incorporated — and go after the president for positions he hasn’t even adopted.
We’ve heard this story before, during the debates last winter over the stimulus.
