According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, most Americans believe that the recent election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate has doomed the health care legislation.
The survey of 1,020 adults was part of an ongoing project by Pew. Back on Dec. 19, 2009, just after Senate Democrats passed their version of health care reform, hopes for the legislation's passage were at their highest, with more than 60 percent of respondents reporting that they believed health care reform would pass.
Optimism remained relatively high until Jan. 19, 2010, when Brown was elected and the Democrats lost their filibuster-smashing majority vote. Immediately after that election, only 23 percent of people thought the legislation would pass.
But there is hope for those who support the bill; Pew conducted another follow-up call in early February 2010, and the percentage of those would believed the bill would survive had risen to 35 percent – a small, but significant, increase.
