Obama Approval On Health Care Has Plummted Since July

Down to 40% from 46% in July.

President Obama’s approval rating on health care has dropped six points since July to 40 percent, and now more Americans, 47 percent, disapprove of his handling of health care, according to a new CBS News poll taken between Aug 27 – 31. .…
Americans are not only skeptical of Mr. Obama’s handling of health care, but also of the effectiveness of reform. Americans are more apt to say the middle class and small business would be hurt, not helped, by the plans currently under consideration. .…
One-third call themselves dissatisfied with the way the Obama administration is handling health care, and another 17 percent describe themselves as angry about it. Thirty-four percent are satisfied, and just 11 percent are enthusiastic. .…
Specifically, Americans predict Congress’ reform plans will cause costs to go up, quality of care to get worse, and the availability of doctors to decline. No more than one in five think Congress’ current plans would make any of those areas better.

This undoubtedly means that any bill the public perceives as government health care is dead on arrival right now. The Democrats might be able to sneak something through that still gets us to government health care – like health care co-ops, which are actually government health care just called something else, or a health care trigger that would give us government health care a decade from now if the private health care industry doesn’t meet what would probably be unmeetable goals set out by Congress. But any bill that is plainly and honest presented as government health care?
No way.
Allah brings up an interesting point about the public’s attitudes about health care, but I don’t think either of the conclusions he suggests are correct:

The fascinating, and potentially important, detail: When asked about specific provisions of ObamaCare — i.e. the public option, statutory ceilings on premiums, guaranteeing insurance irrespective of preexisting conditions, etc. — people are widely supportive. I don’t know how to explain that except to think that (a) public ignorance about the plan really is as bad as CBS claims, which doesn’t say much for The One’s vaunted communications skills, or (b) the country’s now reached such an anti-government fervor that they’re fatally suspicious of even those programs whose particulars they agree with in principle.

Actually, I think the answer is more likely c) people are falling for the usual liberal trick of setting out objectives that are complete unobjectionable.
It’s that game where everything is “for the children,” or if you’re in favor of spending cuts you want to kick little old ladies out onto the streets. Of course most people are in favor of everyone having access to health care. Of course most people don’t want people with cancer to be denied coverage. Those are emotionally-charged questions, and nobody wants to be accused of a jerk when they way “Hey, maybe health care should be a personal responsibility.”
My point is, you can be in favor of expanding access to health care without thinking that government health care is the best or only way to do that. In fact, we could do a lot of things to expand access to health care. We could get government to stop doing the things that makes it so expensive and difficult to get coverage and care, for instance.
Those sort of solutions don’t get talked about much, however, because it means the politicians giving up power instead of accumulating more of it.