The AP’s Walter R. Mears says health care could be a “major political burden” for President Obama and the Democrats heading into 2010:

Obama’s push for action before the summer recess created a goal the Democrats couldn’t meet and a psychological setback he didn’t need to risk. He now says that it was no big deal and that what he wants is a reform law by the end of the year, to get all Americans insured and curb medical costs.
That is a big deal, underscored by his aggressive television and traveling campaign to try to build public support — and pressure in Congress — to enact health care overhaul this time.
“Now is the hard part — because the history is clear — every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they’ve got,” Obama told a town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., on Tuesday. “They use their influence. They use their political allies to scare and mislead the American people. They start running ads. This is what they always do.”
Short of it, he and the Democrats could have a major political burden going into the 2010 congressional elections, just as Clinton did when Democrats lost the 1994 elections after his health care failure.

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