Taking The Temperature

The latest Quinnipiac poll shows pretty widespread antagonism towards the health care bill, and Obama's approval numbers down to 46%.

The second leg of Quinnipiac's big national poll dropped this morning -- and it shows a serious erosion of support for Congressional health reform efforts and the president's performance on the issue -- along with an all-time low 46 percent approval rating for the POTUS.

Most ominously for Dems: Nearly two-thirds of registered voters polled said extending coverage to 30 million-plus people will result in a decline in the quality of their own health care. That gives plenty of room to the GOP to personalize attacks on the plan, Obama and Congress.

The lowlights for Dems:

--O approval/disapproval: 46/44 percent.

--Voters disapprove 52 – 38 percent of the health care reform proposal under consideration in Congress, and they disapprove 56 – 38 percent of President Obama’s handling of health care, down from 53 – 41 percent in a November 19 survey.

--American voters say 63 – 30 percent that extending health insurance to all will raise their cost of health care, although they are split 47 – 46 percent on whether they are willing to pay more to make sure everyone is covered.

--Voters split 48 – 46 percent on whether they think covering everyone will decrease the quality of their own care, but by 71 – 21 percent they do not think universal coverage is worth lower quality of care.

“It’s a good thing for those pushing the health care overhaul in Congress that the American people don’t get a vote. At this time, supporters are down 14 percentage points,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

The GOP attack messages are hitting home, but this was before last night's negotiating breakthrough deal.  However, it does certainly jibe with Nate Silver's observation that there is increasing anger from the left on Obamacare as they see more and more of the public option traded away for nothing in return. The right is bleah on the bill, but the loss in approval is almost all coming from the left at this point.

Today's deal may be the faith-restorer badly needed, but the fact of the matter is the details are what matters here, and unless there's a serious improvement in the deal announced last night, I'm going to be joining the folks calling for a reconciliation deal with a real public option.

[UPDATE 3:10 PM] It gets worse:  PPP has 44% of Americans wishing Bush was still President rather than Obama.  The "liberal" media and the Pretty Hate Machine are doing an excellent job pinning everything on Obama, the notion that he has done "nothing" to help Main Street is starting to take hold with Americans.  It's been seven months now on Obamacare almost.  Americans are sick of hearing about it, and all they see is bad news on jobs, bills, premiums and fat cat bankers and insurance giants telling Congress how high to jump.  A good third of this country has gone over the cliff, screaming off into the Birther/Fascist/racist abyss.  The rest of us are starting to get pissed to the point of actually listening to the siren song coming from the deep darkness.