As the health care debate continues to boil in Congress, lawmakers desperate to force through this unprecedented legislation have tried to rush to passage. Getting something – anything – in place before the tide of public opposition makes its way to the voting booth is now the priority.

In only the past few months, polling has shown a steady downward trend of support for government-run health care. In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal last week, Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute showed just how prevalent public opposition has become. Pointing to a recent Gallup poll, the percentage of Americans who believe the cost of health care for their families will "get worse" under the proposed reforms rose to 49% from 42% in just the past month alone. A September study, also by Gallup, found that 57% believe the government is "doing too much" when asked if there is “too much, too little, or about the right amount of government regulation of business and industry”—the highest percentage in more than a decade. Just 38% said it "should do more."

Liberals look back to the first great expansion of government programs under FDR with regret that they did not go further. At the time, President Roosevelt decided that, even with an overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress, adding national health care to the New Deal would stymie the ability to get future programs in place. Many on the left look back to this decision and say “he had the chance, he had the majority, he should have forced the legislation through.” Ever since then, health care has come and gone and come back again as the political pendulum swings back. But each time it has failed in a key area: public support.

The public outcry over the latest expansion of government intervention has fallen on deaf ears in Congress thus far. Policymakers in Washington have chosen to decide what is best for the American people according to their own perception of the public good. The support of their constituents is good when it favors their initiatives, ignorant or even “evil-mongering” when it does not.

For more on the political agenda behind government-run healthcare, see Fred Barnes’ column this week in The Weekly Standard.

Write to Thomas.Doheny@afphq.org