After Democrats rammed through their unpopular health care takeover through Congress over the objections of a majority of Americans in March, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) predicted, “By November, those who voted for health care will find it an asset, those who voted against it will find it a liability. . . . As people learn what’s actually in the bill, six months from now at election time this will be a plus because the parade of horribles — particularly the worry that the average middle-class has that this will affect them negatively — will have vanished and they’ll see that this will affect them positively.”

With the election less than a month away, though, Americans still don’t like Democrats’ monstrosity of a health care bill and Democrat candidates all across the country are having their eyes opened. The Hill reports today, “Healthcare reform is hurting the reelection chances of freshman Democrats in the House, according to The Hill/ANGA poll. A majority of voters in key battleground districts favor repeal of the legislative overhaul Congress passed this year. President Obama predicted in the spring that the new law would become popular as people learned more about it. But the poll shows Republicans strongly oppose it, independents are wary of it and a surprising number of Democrats also want it overturned.” In fact, 56% of those surveyed favored repeal of the health care law, and nearly 1-in-4 Democrats (23%) agreed. Democrat pollster Mark Penn notes, “Undecided voters wanted the healthcare law repealed by 49 percent to 27 percent.”

And Politico reports that ostensibly pro-life Democrats who voted for a health care bill with inadequate protections against government funding of abortions are finding that their vote is “haunt[ing]” them. “[Pennsylvania Rep. Kathy] Dahlkemper and other anti-abortion Democrats are at risk of becoming an endangered species in the House. She and others eventually signed on to the health reform law, endorsing an executive order that barred federal funding of abortions. But SBA List and other anti-abortion groups opposed the executive order, contending it was too weak. Now, SBA List is engaged in a multimillion-dollar attack on its former allies, replete with bus tours and billboards alleging that members ‘voted for taxpayer-funded abortion.’”

In a CNN piece analyzing how Democrats got to this point, Gloria Borger writes, “‘Health care seemed like a totally inside-the-beltway deal,’ says a Democratic pollster. ‘That went against [President Obama’s] own brand.’ And that’s a dangerous thing for any leader, especially one whose persona was tied to a different way of doing business. After spending nine months debating health care, the Democrats had no choice but to try and pass something. Yet instead of going for a scaled-back version — as then-Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had counseled — they went for the whole thing. They won. But if there are any Democrats campaigning on the wonders of reform this cycle, they can all fit in one VW.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Democrats for their arrogant approach to health care and many other issues in the Weekly Republican Address Saturday. “Over the past 19 months, we’ve witnessed something truly remarkable in Washington. We’ve seen a governing party basically tune out the American people who elected them and aggressively advance an agenda that most Americans vehemently opposed. In fact, the more Americans spoke out against government takeovers, government-run health care, wasteful spending, and debt, the more Democratic lawmakers seemed to dig in.”

And Democrats are now seeing the results of their stubborn push for a health care takeover that Americans opposed and which has so far resulted in higher health care costs, higher taxes, lost jobs, and cuts to Medicare. And in just the last couple of weeks, there has been a series of stories showing companies are likely to change or drop health care coverage because of the law, while insurers are telling consumers to brace for “whopping rate increases” thanks to the new mandates. This isn’t what Americans had in mind when they said they wanted health care reform. No wonder majorities in swing districts would like to see the Democrats’ law repealed.

Related:

Cong. Carnahan on National Healthcare: “Now Is Our Time”

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