Conservatives Spooked By Health Care for America Now Coalition

For the latest installment of The Week in Blog over at Bloggingheads.tv, the Heritage Foundation's Conn Carroll and I discussed the new Health Care for America Now coalition which Campaign for America's Future helped forge.

And Conn, speaking from the conservative think tank's offices, made an interesting admission. After detailing the size of the coalition and the amount of money the coalition is expected to spend to build support for guaranteeing quality, affordable health coverage for all, "There is fear in this building about that." Watch it below.

I asked Conn what conservatives have planned to respond to such an unprecedented progressive push, and he indicated that there isn't anything as of yet. For conservatives, "there's so many other things to worry about," said Conn.

This is no reason to be sanguine. The insurance industry certainly won't give up without a major fight. And the conservative movement has time to re-focus and re-group before Washington addresses comprehensive health insurance reform once a new Congress and president are elected.

But it is further evidence that the progressive movement is out in front of the health care issue in a fashion we did not see in the run-up to 1993-4 health care fight that led to defeat.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future