For months we’ve heard the Democrats rail against opponents of ObamaCare as “defenders of the status quo.” The current system is “unsustainable” or “unacceptable,” we were told, and those dirty dog Republicans want to keep things the way they are. Republicans denied the charge. “No, we want change too!” they retorted. “Who’s in favor of the status quo? Not us!” Well, now it turns out that the public likes the status quo better than what’s coming out of Congress.

As Megan McArdle observes:

You can argue that voters aren’t educated enough and that you can generate good poll numbers for individual components of the plan, but that’s not really relevant. You can generate support for nearly any program, if you poll it without mentioning the associated costs. When voters think about the health care plan, they’re not thinking public option + medicare advantage cuts + etc.  They’re making a judgment about what the entire package will mean. And the entire package has risks as well as benefits:  higher taxes, less generous health coverage for the majority of Americans who already have it.

In other words, the Democrats’ schemes for massive taxes, Medicare cuts, and government “advisory” boards (think about the mammogram guidelines) are going to make things worse for those who have care, without doing anything on the bend-the-cost-curve side. Americans’ support for the existing health-care system is at an all-time high. Why? They realize they might lose it and are scared that what is coming is going to be worse for them specifically and the country generally.

Backers of a government takeover of health care have been trying, not unlike the environmental hysterics, to tell us that we are in a dire crisis. For if one is in a crisis, something must be done. And in a crisis, one tends to be predisposed to accept all sorts of eye-popping power grabs and unbelievable statistics, because it’s a crisis after all. Alas, the public isn’t buying it. It sure doesn’t seem like a health-care crisis to most Americans. The vast majority of voters have insurance and like it. So the bullies holler louder. Now Harry Reid says that those who object are like those who defended slavery and Jim Crow. (That’s when the status quo really was unacceptable.)

What’s coming out of ObamaCare supporters sounds to ordinary voters not soothing or helpful but very expensive, scary, and most of all, arrogant. As Sen. Lamar Alexander explained:

“This bill is historic in its arrogance—arrogance that we in Congress are wise enough to take this complex health system, that is 17 percent of our economy and serves 300 million Americans, and think we can write a 2,000-page bill and change it all. … It’s arrogant to dump 15 million low-income Americans into a medical ghetto called Medicaid that none of us or any of our families would ever want to join.”

So perhaps it’s time to defend the status quo. The crisis mongers and bullies insist we must reinvent the entire health-care system. They are wrong, of course. The current system is not perfect, but the alternative is far worse. The president says we can keep the insurance we have? Yes, if the monstrous government takeover plan is defeated. That would suit most voters just fine.

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