Inside Politics

HEALTH CHECK

If the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats passes, 57 percent of voters nationwide believe it will raise the cost of health care, and 53 percent believe the quality of care will get worse, according to the results of a Rasmussen Reports national survey released Monday.

Overall, 45 percent of the poll respondents support the plan, while 51 percent are opposed to it. Those numbers include 23 percent who “strongly favor” the plan and 40 percent who are “strongly opposed.”

Just 18 percent say passage of the congressional plan will reduce costs, while only 23 percent believe it will lead to better care, the poll says.

Still, despite the less-than-enthusiastic support, 54 percent say passage of the plan is at least somewhat likely this year, while 35 percent say it is not.

Rasmussen said that “perhaps the most stunning aspect” of the survey is how stable the numbers have been on the health care issue through months of debate, raucous town-hall protests, presidential speeches and congressional wrangling. With the exception of bounces following Mr. Obama’s nationally televised presidential pitches for the plan, support has stayed between 41 percent and 46 percent since July, according to Rasmussen.

SECOND OPINION

The October Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds public support for health care reform unchanged since last month, with more in favor than opposed.

The polls shows that 55 percent of Americans believe that it is more important than ever to take on health care reform now, while 41 percent say the country cannot afford it right now.

Fifty-seven percent say they favor the creation of a “government-administered public health insurance option.” But the survey indicates that this support dips to 32 percent when supporters are told that such plans “could give the government plan an unfair advantage over private insurance companies.”

Alternatively, support for the public plan rises to 65 percent when skeptics are told that public plans would be “a fallback that would only kick in if not enough people had affordable health plans available through the private marketplace,” the poll says.

The Kaiser survey also shows about half of the public believes that if reform passes, help for the uninsured and changes in insurance market rules would arrive within the first year - years ahead of the timetables now contemplated in the various bills on Capitol Hill.

FOX FILES

“By effectively cornering the market on anti-administration animus, Fox News has had a robust 2009 so far, and the recent decision by the White House to declare war on the channel is not likely to put a dent in the ratings,” writes Louis Menand in the New Yorker. “That decision has dispirited some of the president’s well-wishers. It has also puzzled them.

“In American politics, it should be considered a good thing when, after you have won a presidential election by more than nine million votes, your chief critics accuse you of filling your administration with Nazis, Maoists, anarchists and Marxist revolutionaries. That is the voice of the fringe, and the fringe is exactly where you want the opposition to set up permanent shop.

“One line of objection to the White House’s effort to ostracize Fox News is that presidential wars against the press are always futile and self-defeating. Are they, though? So we are continually told by, well, the press. Actually, most people don’t especially love journalists, and press-bashing has a mixed history. Lyndon Johnson alternately schmoozed and browbeat editors and reporters and got nowhere with either tactic. On the other hand, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew demonized the press programmatically during their first term in office and were reelected by a near-record margin.

“Still, wars of words are distracting, and Obama campaigned as a listener - a contrast with his supremely deaf predecessor that was evidently welcomed by the electorate. Why are his spokespersons throwing red meat to Fox’s angry white men? Wouldn’t it be better to supply them with only tofu smoothies?”

NELSON ADS

The conservative Americans for Tax Reform has announced a series of ads aimed at encouraging Sen. Ben Nelson, a moderate Nebraska Democrat, to oppose the Senate health care bill on the grounds that it violates his “taxpayer protection pledge.”

“When Senator Nelson ran for the Senate, he made a written pledge to his constituents and the American people to oppose any net income tax hikes,” according to a news release Monday by the advocacy group run by Grover Norquist. “He is bound by that pledge for the duration of his career as a senator. The Senate health care bill contains nearly $500 billion in new tax hikes over the next decade, including billions in income tax hikes.”

The television advertisements will run on local and national news and commentary broadcasts for at least three weeks, reflecting how critical Mr. Nelson’s vote is to preventing tax increases as a part of the health care bill, the group says. The campaign also will have an Internet component, anchored by a dedicated Web site launched Monday.

Mr. Nelson, who has been reluctant to support the Democratic measures calling for a government-run health program to compete with private plans, recently has said he would consider a government “public option” plan if states are given the choice on whether to participate.

“If Senator Nelson joins his Democrat colleagues on these votes, he will be breaking the pledge he made to all Nebraskans to not raise income taxes,” the group’s statement says. “Now is the time where Senator Nelson must follow through on the promise he made to get elected.”

HABLA ESPANOL

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is airing a new Spanish-language radio ad this week in Miami criticizing the Obama administration’s health care reform. The ads, which will run through Wednesday, will air even as President Obama is in the Sunshine State seeking fresh political cash.

“President Obama and Vice President Biden are moving forward with a reckless government-run health care experiment that will have a devastating impact on American families,” said RNC Chairman Michael S. Steele.

“Despite the jam-packed fundraising schedule the president and vice president have during their Miami visit, they should find some time to explain to Florida’s Hispanic-Americans the real consequences that the Democrats’ plan will have on their community.”

SOUL SEARCHING

“Every time it seems that [former Vice President] Dick Cheney has finally tired of satirizing himself, the former veep pops up again to castigate President Obama - for abandoning a faulty missile defense system, for ending the shameful practice of torture, and most recently, for supposedly ’dithering’ about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan,” according to a Boston Globe editorial.

“Yet these criticisms hardly seem to sway the public debate. If anything, they only call attention to how, in 2008, the Bush-Cheney team rebuffed a U.S. commander’s request for 30,000 more troops. It’s as though Cheney’s soul has been taken over by a Democratic dybbuk. Such a mischievous visitor from the spirit world could hardly make a better case for careful deliberation now than Cheney is inadvertently doing.”

• Sean Lengell can be reached at slengell@ washingtontimes.com.