Barack Obama

Opposition To Health Care Law On The Rise Again

Brian Beutler | August 31, 2010, 12:09PM

President Barack Obama

For a time, opposition to health care reform legislation was on the decline and support appeared to be rising. That trend has frozen, and possibly even reversed, according to both a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll, and TPM's PollTracker.

The Kaiser survey of 1,203 adults finds opposition to the health care law at 45 percent, up from 35 percent when they last polled the issue in July. At the same time, support has fallen, from 50 percent down to 43 percent.

Though that swing is wide, the new findings closely mirror TPMs average, which finds opponents outnumbering supporters 47.6-42.2.

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Health Care

Cantor: Of Course We'll Try To Repeal Health Care Reform! (VIDEO)

Brian Beutler | August 27, 2010, 2:44PM

Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Just in case you had any doubt -- as it seems some conservatives did -- House Republican leadership is committed to taking every possible step, even symbolic steps, to repeal health care reform.

On Fox News last night, guest host Laura Ingraham pressed GOP Whip Eric Cantor to commit to putting a repeal bill on the floor at the very start of the next Congress if Republicans take the House. Cantor was completely game. "Absolutely I will pledge to do that! Are you kidding? Of course!" he said. But he also acknowledged that, even if Republicans could pass a repeal bill, it would face a veto, so he and his colleagues will take intermediate steps.

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Town Hall Meetings

August Angst? TPM's Top 10 Town Halls To Watch

Christina Bellantoni | August 9, 2010, 9:03AM

A questioner at a health care town hall meeting in August 2009 hosted by Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA).

Funny things happen when Congress goes home for the summer.

Last August, members of the growing tea party movement -- bolstered by a little astro-turf anti-health care support -- bombarded politicians from California to Florida, sparking scenes of angry mobs, finger-biting, guns, fights and scared lawmakers. But will this August be quieter? Hardly.

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Repealing health care

Cuccinelli: 'I'm Becoming A Target' (VIDEO)

Christina Bellantoni | August 4, 2010, 2:01PM

ken cuccinelli

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli today spoke candidly about already preparing for a reelection bid in 2013, saying that he knows his office's challenge to the Obama administration is attracting national attention.

In an interview on MSNBC's Daily Rundown this morning, Cuccinelli (R) said the lawsuits against environmental regulations and health care reform and a ruling that police can check immigration status means he's getting on the radar.

"I'm not a fool, I'm becoming a target, and I know I'm going to get a bigger target," he said.

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Health care lawsuits

GOP Hails Purely Symbolic Victory In Missouri's Anti-Health Care Reform Vote

Christina Bellantoni | August 4, 2010, 12:41PM

A Tea Party protester

While yesterday's vote in Missouri against national health care reform will have little substantive impact on the federal health care reform law, Republicans nonetheless are hailing it as a major victory for their side. Voters in the Show Me State overwhelmingly voted to change Missouri statutes so the mandate for insurance coverage wouldn't apply, a symbolic gesture that everyone acknowledges is highly unlikely to have any effect on the federal health care reform law (absent major and unexpected changes to established legal precedent).

But don't tell RNC Chairman Michael Steele, House Minority Leader John Boehner or former Alaska governor Sarah Palin that.

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Health care lawsuits

Missouri Voters Poised To Reject Health Care Reform, Start Legal Challenges

Christina Bellantoni | August 3, 2010, 1:07PM

Protesting the health care bill in March.

Missouri Republicans today are preparing to celebrate the success of their ballot initiative on health care reform, which asks Missourians whether they want to roll back a critical element of the new law despite significant questions about the constitutionality of doing so.

But opponents of Prop C, the Republican-engineered ballot measure dubbed the "Health Care Freedom Act" that has more political significance than legal precedent behind it, number just in the hundreds and have scant help from the state's Democrats or even Gov. Jay Nixon. The teenage leader of the opposition, in fact, is managing a Facebook campaign against the ballot measure in between his job making sandwiches at Subway.

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