TGIF! It looks like the wonderful spring-like sunny weather is not going to hold through the weekend, unfortunately. Let’s roll with the open thread.
Democrats overwhelmingly want to pass the health care reform bill. I understand how they’re feeling, I’m sick of the delays.
Roughly five out of six members of MoveOn favor passing the health reform bill in its current form:
Should MoveOn support or oppose the final health care bill if it looks like the plan recently proposed by President Obama?
Support 83
Oppose 17That is a pretty resounding endorsement from the grassroots.
I know that some people here think that House Progressives could force the White House to push conservative Democrats to accept a stronger bill if the Progs refused to vote for anything less. However, if the Democratic leadership is facing two different groups of Dems demanding “give in to us or else we will kill the bill,” the leadership is just going to pressure the group whose constituency is more in favor of passing the bill as is. And clearly, House Progressives have both activist and in-district constituencies that are overwhelmingly in favor of passing the bill as is. So, the leadership will pressure the Progs as the path of least resistance.
There’s still a few progressive House members who are holding out on voting for the bill (Mike Capuano, Dennis Kucinich), however this is position is a small minority of the Democratic party. I think some progressives have been surprised at the reactions they’ve gotten when they’ve said they’re voting no
Overall, support for passing health care reform has gone up 7% in the last month. I guess opposition has peaked after people got a look at the alternatives Republicans are offering (status quo) and President Obama has made a PR push in the last couple of months. Remember – at least a third of the opposition to the bill comes from the left, who doesn’t think the bill goes far enough.
