Scrapyard Scrum

Folks, health care reform just suffered a heart attack.

In a brutal assessment of the Democratically authored healthcare reform bills pending in Congress and the governing party's approach to the issue, more than half of the respondents to a new Zogby International-University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston poll said that lawmakers should start from scratch.

Of the more than 2,500 people surveyed from Jan. 29 to Feb. 1, 57 percent agreed with a statement that Congress should start over -- which is exactly what Republicans are demanding and what President Barack Obama insists he will not do.

Moreover, 56.4 percent of people indicated they would prefer Congress to tackle healthcare reform on a step-by-step basis, not take the comprehensive approach as embodied in the legislation that passed the House and Senate last year but has stalled for the past month.

Now granted, that was from two weeks ago and that was before the summit was announced.  I don't think it will matter much at this point.  Republicans will be all over this.  This would explain the "new health care plan" the White House has been hinting at for next week's summit.

On the other hand, it gives the GOP all the cover they need to refuse to do anything at the summit other than repeat the result of this poll as loudly as possible.