Health Care

The health care bill passed tonight by a somewhat healthy margin of 219-212. I say healthy because as recently as this morning, there were serious doubts about whether it would pass at all. Given the Democrats' large majority in the House, though, some would say the bill should have passed by a much larger margin. There is one major reason why the margin is not surprising though: reelection.

If one looks at the House districts where Democrats voted no on the bill, a fairly obvious pattern emerges. Almost all are in politically moderate or even slightly conservative districts. Most likely, many of these Democratic House members were elected on the coattails of large Obama turnouts. Their political reality, however, is that much of their district's moderately conservative electorate is opposed to the health care legislation, and most likely a majority feels this way. They faced a difficult choice tonight: vote with their party and listen to the President, or vote the way their constituents wanted them to. While a call from Obama may have given them pause, most Congressmen in these districts realized that while his reelection bid in 2012 may be influenced by the outcome of tonight's vote, this fall feels a lot closer.

So the answer to the question of why Democrats voted against the bill is simple: survival. It remains to be seen whether voting 'no' will be enough to save these moderate Dems, or if 1994 will repeat itself.