United Liberty

The bounce Democrats got with passage didn’t last very long. According to the most recent Gallup/USA Today survey, negative views of the health care bill still prevail:

In the poll, 50% call passage of the bill “a bad thing” and 47% say it was “a good thing.” That’s at odds with the findings of a one-day USA TODAY Poll taken a week ago — a day after the U.S. House approved the legislation — in which a 49%-40% plurality called the bill “a good thing.”

Politico notes that the impact of the health care bill has been marginal. He is almost where he was before it passed Congress:

The most prominent political prognosticator who predicted a post-reform bump for Obama was President Bill Clinton – who told reporters last year that Obama would add 10 points to his approval rating “the minute health reform passed.”

But Obama’s approval in the Gallup daily tracking poll stands at 48 percent – near his all-time low of 46 percent in the three-day rolling average. Near the time of passage, Obama ticked up to 50 percent in the poll.

“People thought Obama might get a significant uptick,” said Frank Newport of the Gallup Poll. “Obama’s approval seems to have moved up a few points during and slightly after passage. Then it fell back down again.”

You do have to wonder how much time the president and Democrats are going to spend promoting an unpopular health care bill. As I noted yesterday, there are certainly parts of the legislation that people like, but opposition to the bill as a whole and disapproval of the Obama’s handling of the issue remained high during the heat of the debate last summer to the day it was passed by Congress.

If Obama does spend a lot time on this issue, he risks neglecting other important issues, such as the economy. He can try to tie health care into the economy as much as he wants, but voters haven’t bought before and it’s unlikely they’ll buy it now.