Thursday, January 14, 2010

Obamacare Could Rest On One Vote In The Senate

Rasmussen Reports on health care reform:

40% of voters nationwide favor the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. Fifty-five percent (55%) are opposed. As has been the case throughout the debate, those who feel strongly about the issue are more likely to be opposed. Just 19% of voters Strongly Favor the plan while 45% are Strongly Opposed.
Via Ben Smith at Politico:

Organizing for America is blasting this video out to its Massachusetts list, recorded by the president on Martha Coakley's behalf.

Obama frames it with a recognition of the incredibly high national stakes: "It's clear now that the outcome of these and other fights will probably rest on one vote in the U.S. Senate," he said, referring to battles over health care, financial reform, and climate change. "That's why what happens Tuesday in Massachusetts is so important."

Coakley, he says, will be "your voice and my ally." Brown, who goes unnamed, is backed by "opponents of change."

It's worth pausing to consider how enormously high, in political and substantive terms, the stakes really are. If Brown wins, there's a strong chance that health care legislation collapses, leaving the status quo in place in that industry and rendering the central initiative of Obama's first year an unambiguous failure. Coakley's victory will still, at this point, be a kind of a warning shot, but would ensure passage of a bill on which Obama has staked a lot.

~click~

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