It looks like the Democratic Leadership will get its wish, a sprawling “health care reform” bill, mostly focused on changes to the health insurance system that deliver many millions of new customers to the health insurance industry. The Democrats are making many upbeat claims about this bill, calling it historic and claiming that it will produce affordable “universal” health care coverage for Americans, and for 32 million more than are covered by insurance today, while blithely ignoring the contradiction between these two statements. There have been many recent analyses of these claims, and I won’t add another one here. The analysis of the FDL team authored by Jane Hamsher, contrasting mythical claims about the pending bill with “the truth,” is the best of the analyses of the bill I’ve seen in the past few days.

So, assuming that the Leadership’s HCR legislation passes the Senate and moves to the President’s desk for final approval, I’d now like to look forward and ask where the Democrats stand politically in the wake of their nearly one year investment in painstakingly crafting their “health care reform” bill. To put it crassly, what will they have to run on that means something to most, or, at least, a large number of voters?