Down to the Wire

Nate has two interesting posts about the health care bill. The first suggests optimism that this thing (though maybe not the thing we all hoped it would be) could actually pass this week. Certainly Barack is putting everything into making that happen. And you know what happens when Barack is pissed and motivated.

Also, thought Seana would like to see this.

Also from Nate: Gallup did something pretty cool in connection with their latest health care survey, which was to provide the verbatim responses (.xls) of the rationales given by people who would tell their Congressman to vote for or against the current health care bills, respectively.

In some sense, this is a very old-fashioned debate about the proper role of government. The message that the pro-reform voters have taken away comes through loudly and clearly: 'PEOPLE ... NEED ... INSURANCE', whereas concerns among the anti's boil down to 'GOVERNMENT' and 'COST'.