WASHINGTON — With a health care overhaul inching closer to reality, Democrats have begun devising and testing arguments to convince a skeptical public that passage of the bill justifies keeping President Barack Obama’s party in power in the 2010 midterm elections.
The legislation’s passage is not guaranteed, but its chances rose significantly with a vote early Monday in which Senate Democrats united behind a bill that could emerge from the Senate by Christmas. With that landmark within reach, Democratic strategists are pivoting to the upcoming midterm elections, where the party’s comfortable congressional majority is at risk.
“We can’t just pass it. People aren’t going to know what happened. So, we have to sell the plan,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster.
A sour public mood is making matters tough for Democrats. Voters are impatient with incumbents and worried more about the persistent economic downturn than about health care coverage, polling shows.
“They’ve been talking about everything but what voters are most concerned about, and that’s jobs,” said Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman.
In the face of arguments that health care is a second-tier concern, Democrats will stress that producing jobs and overhauling health care, which accounts for one-sixth of the economy, are inseparable.
They will also argue that the bill will produce immediate results.
Party leaders want to minimize concerns that many provisions in the bill will not take effect until 2014, when, for example, a new health-insurance marketplace opens that will aim to make it easier for consumers to find and buy health policies.
So Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are compiling lists of “immediate benefits” that will spring from passage of the bill, which is up for a vote in the Senate on Thursday.
One such measure is a small-business tax credit aimed at helping employers pay for coverage. Another immediate “deliverable” added by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., includes a ban on denying coverage to children based on pre-existing conditions.
Daniel Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, said in an interview Monday: “While it will be a few years before the insurance exchange is set up, there are a number of very important protections that go into place right away.”
Another immediate change is a prohibition that bars insurance companies from setting lifetime benefit caps or rescinding insurance because a person is filing claims.
The Senate bill also extends insurance coverage to 30 million additional people.
Democrats hope these changes will resonate in a bad economy, when voters are worried about losing their jobs and seeing their coverage disappear.
Yet Republicans also see health care as a winning campaign issue as they try to regain control of the House and Senate. GOP officials have compiled polling data showing that a variety of incumbent Democrats who have backed a health care overhaul are trailing Republican opponents.
Brian Walsh, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said: “It goes back to the old (Bill) Clinton phrase: ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ We’re talking about passing a bill that will raise taxes at a time when there’s double-digit unemployment.”
He noted that while the health debate is taking place, Republican candidates for Senate are leading Democrats in several Democratic-leaning states.
