Today, a Pew Research Center poll was released showing the majority of Americans believe the health reform effort is not going to happen.
About 60 percent believe health care and health insurance reform in Washington will not pass; 30 percent believe it will become law.
But surprisingly, these aren’t at their worst. Just after Senator-elect Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts for Senator Edward Kennedy’s seat, almost 70 percent of America thought health reform was done for.
Also, as we’ve blogged about before, Virginia lawmakers are very close to passing a state law that would ban a federal health insurance mandate. Problem is, the state law wouldn’t hold up against a federal statute.
Finally, President Obama included an extension to the COBRA subsidy for laid-off workers to the end of 2010. The program can definitely be considered a success and is very popular with Americans. (Premiums for COBRA coverage can be hundreds of dollars, though an individual health insurance policy can be as low as $50 per month.)
So lots of things are happening for the middle of the week and we’ll see what happens next.