President Barack Obama goes before Congress this evening to urge passage of health care reform this year. I will update this post later when the prepared text of the speech becomes available. White House officials say Obama will make the case for a public health insurance option, but it sounds as if he will still leave the door open for Congress to take a different approach. That doesn’t look like a strong negotiating position to me.

Various polling firms will survey people who watch Obama’s speech tonight. Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com discusses the methodology of instant reaction polls and gives a few reasons for you to be skeptical of their findings.

Speaking of polls, I was disappointed to learn from Greg Sargent that a recent White House memo omitted results from polls showing strong nationwide support for a public health insurance option. (Multiple polls earlier this summer also found majorities in favor of a public option. In fact, Republican pollster Rasmussen has found that support for health care reform drops sharply if there is no public option.

Still, expect to hear Republicans demagogue against government-run “Obamacare.” Yesterday The Iowa Republican blog hyped a new poll from the Winston Group showing that a plurality of Iowans oppose “Obama’s plan” for health care (whatever that is). I wasn’t surprised to read that the head of the Winston Group

has served as a strategic advisor to Senate and House Republican leadership for the past 10 years. He was formerly the Director of Planning for Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and advises center-right political parties throughout Europe. Additionally Winston was a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation where he did statistical policy and econometric modeling. He has served in a senior staff role to four RNC Chairmen.

Gee, I’m shocked that the Winston Group would produce a poll indicating that Obama’s plan is unpopular.

The president’s support has declined quite a bit among Democrats and independents recently. The obvious way for him to turn this situation around is to get behind a real health care reform package that doesn’t give away the store to corporate interests.

Speaking of giving away the store, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus finally made his health care plan public this week. Turns out K Street lobbyists had the draft before Baucus showed it to fellow senators or White House officials. Also, a Baucus staffer who used to work for WellPoint is the author of the document.

Ezra Klein thinks the Baucus plan isn’t as bad as you may have heard, but Chris Bowers explains why it is very, very bad. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell are correct, and the White House is sick of dealing with Baucus. But like Bowers, I am skeptical that Obama would push for any law encountering objections from the major industry it affects. Consequently, I have no confidence in Obama to reject the Baucus approach outright.

Post any thoughts about the president’s speech or health care reform in this thread.

UPDATE: The full text of the speech as prepared is after the jump. I didn’t watch, but I did read the speech and I am very disappointed. He made a big deal about the moral case for reform, then defended the public option by saying don’t worry, hardly anyone will sign up for it. The only veto threat he made was, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future.”

If we did health care reform right, we would save money and not add to the deficit. But on principle, I reject the idea that providing universal health care at reasonable cost is not worth doing if it adds to the deficit. Obama doesn’t mind expanding our commitment in Afghanistan, providing an open-ended bailout to Wall Street, extending most of the Bush tax cuts and any number of other things that add to the federal deficit. But for some reason, health care reform isn’t as important. Pathetic.

Corrupt Democrats will make sure that no real public option remains in the bill, which will drive up the cost, allowing Republicans to complain that Obama is breaking his promise not to add to the deficit. To keep costs down, Congress will probably reduce the subsidies available to citizens who will be forced to purchase private insurance. Huge bonanza for insurance companies, nothing to keep costs down, political suicide for the Democratic Party.

I don’t care what the instant reaction polls say; in my view this speech was a failure.