Jay Cost thinks so, and he explains why in a new Weekly Standard column:
Nate Silver and Jonathan Chait disagree with my recent assessment that the health care law has been a factor in the political decline of the Democrats. Both of them make essentially the same point: you can’t prove it! Well…yeah! Absent a poll asking people if their main reason for opposition to the Democrats is health care, the best we can do is make a circumstantial argument.* This kind of argumentation happens all the time, especially over at FiveThirtyEight: Every time Silver offers up a statistical correlation, he’s making a circumstantial argument. Nothing wrong with that. And while correlation does not necessitate causation (and all that jazz), there is a very strong circumstantial argument to be made here. Consider the contrary assertion: The president and the Democrats’ numbers dropped sharply between Memorial Day and Labor Day of last year, right when the health care debate heated up, then declined again between November and December as each chamber passed their versions of it; yet while the bills were manifestly unpopular, it was not a reason for the decline. Does that really make sense?
Cost goes on to write that ? unlike pundits Silver and Chait ? Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., “one of the most innovative voices in the health care debate,” is working to exempt his state from portions of ObamaCare. By the way, Wyden’s up for re-election this year.
