Jon Stewart was right on the money today making essentially the same point you are – Mass state already has health insurance for everyone. So the people of Mass elected someone who essentially is going to vote against a plan at the federal level something he supported at the state level. Are these people dumb?

“Are these people dumb?”

The answer is “no.” This election is a victory for Federalism. If Mass citizens are perfectly happy” with their own system, the obvious conclusion is that individual states rather than national government should be in the business of health care.

The “laboratory of states” is a wonderful mechanism. Why vote for one massive national plan (that happens to be subject to perverse side deals with unions, Louisiana, and Nebraska) when you can have 50 different systems – some of which will work, some of which will fail, and all of which we can study to determine whats effective/not effective.

More importantly, the individualized state plans will more accurately reflect the preferences of each state. If Massachusetts has a great system, people and medical providers will move there. If South Carolina happens to develop the better system, people and medical providers will move there. Since it’s much easier to move states than it is to move out of the US, a state-by-state approach is best anyway.

Coakley did not lose this election because of Romneycare. Coakley lost this election because her party has moved too strongly to the left… in favor of huge, federal programs. This was a small government vote – pure and simple. Any notion that the Democrats need to be more progressive or an even bigger healthcare plan is delusional. If the continue down this path, they will more.

oops…

“If they continue down this path, they will LOSE more power

Take this for what its worth, based on who commissioned this poll…but a large part of dissatisfaction does not seem to stem from big federal programs or a concern for federalism. Link here and here

95% of voters said the economy was important or very important when it came to deciding their vote.

53% of Obama voters who voted for Brown and 56% of Obama voters who did not vote in the Massachusetts election said that Democrats enacting tighter restrictions on Wall Street would make them more likely to vote Democratic in the 2010 elections.

51% of voters who voted for Obama in 2008 but Brown in 2010 said that Democratic policies were doing more to help Wall Street than Main Street.

Nearly half (49%) of Obama voters who voted for Brown support the Senate health care bill or think it does not go far enough. Only 11% think the legislation goes too far.

I have not searched for any other polls yet…saw this one linked in my twitter feed, but if they come up with different results I will be happy to see them.

Some other polls-
This poll supposedly by a republican finds similar approval to the health care bill, but does not break down why the opposition. 38% said it was based on opposition to Obama, 32% said based on support and 27% said it was not a factor. See link

This is a poll by a liberal group which does not show the opposition to big government.

There is a lot of populist angst out there, but not a lot of support in the polling that I have seen that supports the proposition that people want small government. Almost every poll on the issue shows a majority of the public actually supporting some form of public option. As some of the anecdotal evidence suggests, some of the teabaggers were not aware Medicare was a govt program

From an ABC News/Washington Post poll of a 1,083 American adults taken over January 12-15 (admittedly not exclusive to Massachusetts):

The poll asked:

People always say that generally, but when you get to specific brasstacks the opinion switches drastically.

Public support has pretty much always been around the high 50s like this poll in December for a public option.