Is Obama doing with Healthcare What Bush tried to do with Social Security?

This article makes an interesting case for it:

Obama's Ambition: Was His Strategy a Mistake?

[...] He knows he must succeed in passing health care, in some form or another. But should he try to do it with token Republican support?

In the ideologically polarized House, Obama can expect virtually no Republican support. The same could happen now in the Senate and many Democrats are prepared to move ahead on that basis. But not all believe that. Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist and a tough partisan in campaigns, said Obama should resist that course.

Devine argued that, given the state of public opinion and the complexity of overhauling the health care system, Obama should press for a package that can attract genuine Republican support, at least in the Senate, by which he means more than two or three votes. As he put it, while voters have become more comfortable supporting Democrats in the last two elections, "There hasn't been a deep ideological conversion to our side."

A new Gallup poll released this week showed the consequences of doing what Obama has done this year. The survey found that two in three independents now believe Obama's proposals call for too much government spending and three in five think that agenda calls for too much government.

Obama has a tough call ahead. Should he press for passage of a health care bill over near-universal Republican opposition, assuming that he and the Democrats will reap a political benefit for accomplishing something that has eluded others? Or should he make bipartisan agreement a top priority in the Senate, even with a scaled-down compromise, to ease concerns about the size of government and the deficit? [...]

Much of the rest of the article makes some interesting comparisons with George Bush's presidency. Bush also started out with a majority of his party in power, and he tried to use that to push through some of this campaign promises like reforming Social Security and our Immigration Policy. He failed because he did not build popular support for his changes first.

In so many ways, Obama seems to be doing the same thing. I can only hope his worst domestic policies get sandbagged before they can be implemented.


Related Link:

How to Make Health-Care Reform Bipartisan