Rival senators who were once happy to set aside political differences over bowls of mushroom soup are now at each other’s throats. After last week’s crucial procedural vote on a sweeping $871 billion (£546 billion) reform package, Obama may pay a steep price for his advance on a longstymied Democratic dream of extending health insurance to more than 30m Americans previously unable to afford it.
Yet it was clear last week, as the president flew off to Hawaii for his Christmas break, that while the Clintons put defeat behind them and cruised to two full terms in the White House, Obama may never recover from a victory that has demolished his bipartisan aspirations and which his critics have already judged pyrrhic.
It was a bizarre feature of the US healthcare debate that the longer it went on and the closer it came to a successful outcome, the lower Obama sank in opinion polls. By the time the last $100m incentives had been dished out to wavering Democratic senators last week, Obama was languishing at his lowest approval ratings of the year, with one poll showing that only 32% of Americans still think the healthcare plan is a “good” idea.
