GOP Points To Polls Showing Less Support For Reform, Dems May Put Tax On Wealthy Back On The Table

Republicans are making headway in new polls, based on gains they're getting from the public's reform pushback, McClatchy Newspapers reports: "Over the August congressional break, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio issued regular news releases about health care surveys. 'New Rasmussen Poll Shows That 53 Percent of Americans Oppose Democratic Government-Run Health Plan,' read an Aug. 13 release. It cited 'no fewer than five polls' that it said 'showed increasing concern, if not outright opposition' to the Obama efforts. Two days earlier, Boehner cited surveys by Rasmussen, USA Today and Gallup as evidence of 'continued erosion of support for the government takeover of health care.' The Republican embrace of polling, however, follows years of GOP disdain for opinion surveys" (Rosen, 9/2).

 Democrats are again considering taxing the rich to help pay for the health care overhaul. The Wall Street Journal: "The main proposal getting renewed attention is one by President Barack Obama that would limit the federal tax deductions for higher-income families for mortgage interest and other widely claimed purposes, said two senior Senate Democratic aides. The development reflects a hardening of partisan lines in the effort to forge a health-care bill. Raising taxes on the wealthy was regarded as a virtual deal-breaker for Senate Republicans engaged in negotiations over the spring and summer. So Senate Democrats steered clear of such an approach" But a perceived hardening of Republicans against reform has led some Democrats to take up the idea again (McKinnon, 9/3). 

NPR takes a step back near the end of the Congressional recess to look at the state of the health care reform debate in a story and one-hour radio special (9/2).