Health Reform Won't Save Dems

The Democrats are living in dreamland if they think passing health care is good politics, writes Kim Strassel. The bill isn't going to become any more popular than it is now with independent voters if it becomes law, and passing it is hardly going to energize a Democratic base that wanted a public option and views the current legislation as a cop-out, Strassel writes in the Wall Street Journal.

Some Democrats argue that passing the bill will "prove they can lead," but passing a bill that most voters hate isn't a great example of good governance, Strassel writes. Any way you look at it, the politics behind the bill are bad—so bad "that it lends credence to the belief that some in the White House and Congress are far more ideologically interested in establishing European-style health care than they are the public's will or their party's electoral success," she concludes.
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