Jonathan Chait has been arguing that “health-care reform” is popular. He points out that elements of the legislation are popular and that many of the people who oppose the legislation on the Hill do so because it doesn’t go far enough. A majority of the country, he says, either supports the legislation or wants more liberal legislation.
Some polls find less dissent from the left. But what’s interesting is that these lefties, however many of them there are, are so dissatisfied with the current legislation that they describe themselves as opposed to it. It is not inconceivable that left-wing opposition to the bill could reach the point where it brings it down. In that case they will have objectively been the allies of those of us who oppose the legislation from the right.