Dems Still Have To Sell The Bill
Dems were ebullient yesterday when a preliminary CBO report said health care reform legislation being considered this weekend by the House would reduce the budget deficit by $130B over the next 10 years, but new polling data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that the deficit-reduction argument could be a tough sell.
In the foundation's new monthly tracking poll, released today but conducted before the CBO's most recent finding, a majority of Americans actually believes the CBO has said health care reform would increase the deficit over the next 10 years. Just 15% of Americans believe the CBO has said it will decrease the deficit, with 20% under the impression the CBO has said the legislation would not affect the deficit significantly.
The CBO has found that the bills that passed the House and Senate in '09 both would reduce the deficit over the first 10 years.
Underscoring the degree to which public opinion on health care has hardened, only 10% say they don't know what the CBO has said about the effect health care legislation would have on the deficit.
Assuming Dem leaders can muster the votes to enact the Senate bill and reconciliation fixes, their challenge then will be to convince Americans that their new health care reform law won't increase the deficit. An important starting point would be to convince Americans that the CBO has actually said it reduces the national debt.
The Kaiser poll was conducted from Mar. 10-15 by Princeton Survey Research Assoc. The poll surveyed 1,208 adults, with a margin of error of +/- 2.8%.
"An important starting point would be to convince Americans that the CBO has actually said it reduces the national debt."
Ummm, not really.
The REAL starting point that Dems are going to be hammering on is the grouping of policies that go into effect THIS YEAR or January 1st, 2011. Some policies go into effect immediately upon signage, some go into effect the next calendar year.