Republican staffer says public will probably like health care reform once they find out what's in it

I ran into a Republican Hill staffer on my way to work today and asked him about last night’s health care vote. His answer was a little surprising:

I gotta hand it to Obama getting it done. It's somewhat of a political gamble with some of the provisions not kicking in until 2012. Democrats will lose seats in November, but when the bill starts kicking in and people find out what the bill does—if it works—Obama will have put himself in a good situation.

I’m torn. I don’t like the cost of the bill, but I also can't stomach people getting turned away from health insurance. That's just wrong.

Slowly the truth starts to come out. Here's what David Axelrod has to say:

“This only worked well for the Republican Party if it failed to pass,” David Axelrod, one of the president’s closest political advisers, said at the White House as he watched the vote count for the final bill reach 219 in favor. “They wanted to run against a caricature of it rather than the real bill. Now let them tell a child with a pre-existing condition, ‘We don’t think you should be covered.’”