Health Care Is Not A Winning Issue For Republicans

The Republicans think they have a great campaign issue in their opposition to the health care reform signed into law by President Obama.   They are looking at polls that show more people were opposed to the law than were in favor of it.   A recent poll done by Stanford University for the Associated Press shows this.   It said that 40% were opposed to the law while only 30% supported it (and another 30% were neutral).

On the surface that would seem to favor Republican opposition to the new law -- and give them a great campaign issue.   They want to repeal the law and then make some minor changes to health care rules.   That might make their base of right-wingers happy, but the same poll shows it would not make the majority of Americans happy.   Only 25% of people think the health care system can be fixed with only minor changes.   A full 75% believe major changes were needed.

It turns out that of the 40% that said they were opposed to the law, many of them were opposed to the law because they didn't think it went far enough.   They wanted more change than the law offered.   In fact, 40% of poll respondents said they didn't think the law changed our health care system enough, while only 20% said they thought too much change had been made.

Now the Republicans can keep campaigning on opposition to major changes to the health care system, but it would be a real mistake -- almost as bad a mistake as their wanting to privatize Social Security, abolish Medicare, eliminate the Department of Education, and give millions of dollars in tax breaks to the richest Americans.   The fact is that a majority of Americans oppose the Republican positions on all these issues.

If the Democrats are smart they will pound the Republicans on all these issues until election day.   These issues may be popular with the teabagger element in the Republican Party, but they are not winning issues with the general public.