'After Weeks of Health Care Madness, Public Support for Reform Drops... Somewhat'

From Brian Beutler at TPM here.

As predicted, August did not go quietly. But after a month of wild-eyed freak outs over death panels, and death books, and death wishes, and death threats, how much has the state of public opinion on health care really changed?

The answer probably depends on how you look at it: too much if you support reform, too little if you oppose it. Given just how raucous the last several weeks have been though--relative to over-the-top rhetoric comparing Obama to Hitler and health care reform to Nazism--the real change has been surprisingly modest. . . .

None of this is to suggest that Obama and Congressional leaders have an easy job ahead of them. Overall support is clearly lower than Democratic leaders would like, and much of the loss in support appears to have come from the independent voters that vulnerable Dems might need if they're to be re-elected in 2010. But still, the reality doesn't map at all on to the news coverage, which made it seem as if health care reform was under siege.