Health Care Vote Has Democrats on Defense

From The New York Times:

While clearly secondary to economic concerns, the continuing debate over health care has remained prominent in numerous races for the House and Senate.

Health care also has played a role in contests for governor and attorney general, the winners of which will have a say in carrying out the new law. And three states — Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma — will be voting on largely symbolic ballot initiatives intended to invalidate the law’s requirement that their residents have health insurance.

In Congressional races, a centerpiece of the Republican strategy has been to use Democratic ‘yes’ votes on the law to tar incumbents as advocates of expansive government and lock-step followers of their party’s leadership.

The Democrats’ inability to control the messaging during the legislative debate bled unstaunched into the campaign, as Republicans appealed to base voters with a bumper-sticker pledge to repeal the law or, if unable, to drain its financing.

Their cause has been helped by early indications that federal judges in two districts are seriously considering the law’s constitutionality (a third judge has already upheld it). The Republicans also benefited from premium increases and market withdrawals that insurers and employers blamed on requirements for expanded coverage, bringing a furious response from the Obama administration.

Polling on the law shows that the electorate remains split along partisan lines, with independents leaning against it.

Strikingly, just after Labor Day, the only House Democrats with television ads on the health care law were among the 34 who broke with the party to vote against it. Some of those incumbents have used their votes to demonstrate independence from, and even antagonism toward, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi (while being careful not to alienate black voters by similarly confronting Mr. Obama).

“I voted against Nancy Pelosi’s trillion-dollar health care bill, because we can’t afford it,” says Representative Jim Marshall, a Democrat, in an ad broadcast in his middle Georgia district. “That’s just one reason why I won’t support her for speaker.”