The Electoral Message on the Health Care Vote

Saturday's House vote on the health care overhaul bill indicates Democrats aren't paying attention to voters' concerns, a key House Republican said Sunday, something that could cause them grief in the 2010 midterm elections.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said Democrats are putting their liberal, big government agenda ahead of the American people.

"I think the American people are deeply frustrated with a liberal establishment in Washington, D.C., that is ignoring their will," he said.

Referring to Saturday's House vote on the health care overhaul bill, Pence added, "[Speaker] Nancy Pelosi last night said that they were answering the call of history. Well, I've got to tell you, if Democrats keep ignoring the American people, their party's going to be history in about a year."

Also appearing on the Fox program was Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, countered that the "message" was clear.

"It's time to begin to fix what has been a broken health care system for millions of Americans," he said. "Between the year 2000 and 2008, we saw premiums double for Americans during that period of time. ... So this is a message to the American people. It's time to bring down your costs, which will allow more people to afford health insurance."

The message from the 2008 election, he said, was "loud and clear. The American people were tired of us pushing big issues under the rug, not dealing with the major challenges" and Republicans "had a lock on Congress. They did nothing about these issues, these rising costs, the fact that insurance companies could essentially abuse consumers. They did nothing about it."

Referring to the Nov. 3 elections -- when two Republicans captured the governor's offices in New Jersey and Virginia, and two Democrats won House seats in special contests -- "there were only two races in the country where what we're doing in Congress at the federal level was at the center of debate, and those were the two congressional races. Both members of Congress won. Both of them voted yes last night on health care reform," Van Hollen said.

Also appearing on the program was Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., who earlier had said he would oppose any health care overhaul proposal that includes a public option.

"There's some good things in the in the House-passed plan. I think we ought to do health care reform this year to deal with the two great problems that President Obama and others have talked about," he said. "But I'm afraid our colleagues in the House added a lot onto that subtract from the genuine purposes of health care reform, and one was to create a public option plan."

If the public option remains in the legislation, he said, "as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote, because I believe the debt can break America and send us into a recession that's worse than the one we're fighting our way out of today. I don't want to do that to our children and grandchildren."

Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also debated the bill's eventual fate on the CBS program "Face the Nation." .

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., "has introduced a public option," said Reed. "There's strong support there. But we are far from the end of the debate in the Senate. It will take time. It will be careful, thorough and deliberate. I hope that a public option is part of the final bill."

"The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate," said Graham. "Just look at how it passed. It passed 220-215. It passed by two votes. You had 40 -- 39 Democrats vote against the bill. They come from red states, moderate Democrats from swing districts. They bailed out on this bill. It was a bill written by liberals for liberals."