Health Care BS

Mark Steyn believes the Dems will pass Obamacare, hook or crook, for the following reason:

Look at it from the Dems’ point of view. You pass Obamacare. You lose the 2010 election, which gives the GOP co-ownership of an awkward couple of years. And you come back in 2012 to find your health care apparatus is still in place … That’s a huge prize, and well worth a midterm timeout.

Here’s why he’s wrong: The attitude he describes is indeed that of the Democrat leadership and the White House. But it isn’t shared by all of the Dems who will lose their seats if Obamacare passes.

The rank-and-file Dems know they are being asked to face a barrage of voter wrath while their “leaders” remain safely in the bunker. Obama and Pelosi are in no danger of being fired in November.

Obama, Pelosi, et al may think it’s “well worth a midterm timeout,” but the people they’re asking to sit on the bench for two years (or permanently) will be less enthusiastic. Steyn is not quite right when he says:

Once you look at it that way, what the Dems are doing makes perfect sense. For them.

Actually, what they’re doing “makes perfect sense” for the Democrat leadership, but not for the rank-and-file. That’s why Pelosi is having trouble wrangling enough votes to finish it.

So, Steyn is right about the intentions of the Democrat leadership, but wrong about the fate of Obamacare. In the end, the rank-and-file will decline to sacrifice themselves for this dubious cause.