OBAMACARE BY THE NUMBERS – AT 8:01 P.M. ET:  Various news sources this evening say the Dems are still approximately five votes short in the House on Obamacare.  Situation very fluid. 

The Dems claim they will make no further changes in the bill that will, presumably, be voted on later this week.  So now it's pure arm twisting that will be the torture of choice. 

A Wall Street Journal column this morning examines the stunning results of a new poll on Americans' feelings about Obamacare:

Voters in key congressional districts are clear in their opposition to what they have seen, read and heard on health-care reform. That's one of the findings of a survey that will be released today by the Polling Company on behalf of Independent Women's Voice. The survey consisted of 1,200 registered voters in 35 districts represented by members who could determine the outcome of the health-care debate. Twenty of those members voted for the House bill in November but now may be reconsidering. Fifteen voted against the bill but are under tremendous pressure to change their vote.

The survey shows astonishing intensity and sharp opposition to reform, far more than national polls reflect. For 82% of those surveyed, the heath-care bill is eit her the top or one of the top three issues for deciding whom to support for Congress next November. (That number goes to 88% among independent women.) Sixty percent want Congress to start from scratch on a bipartisan health-care reform proposal or stop working on it this year. Majorities say the legislation will make them and their loved ones (53%), the economy (54%) and the U.S. health-care system (55%) worse off—quite the trifecta.

COMMENT:  Results like this have no impact on the left-wing shock troops of the Democratic Party.  They see this as their moment to change America.  Even the loss of Congress in November is not too great a price to pay. 

The Dems see this as an event very similar to the passage of civil-rights legislation in 1964.  They are wrong, of course, but there's no reasoning with them.  They feel they are heroic.  I doubt if many of the leading leftist Dems have actually examined what the bill says.  It's the ideology, my dears...and all those invitations to give commencement speeches.

March 15, 2010