Americans also support ensuring greater access to health insurance to help pay for health care costs. Requiring health insurance companies to accept applicants with pre-existing conditions and forbidding companies from canceling policies garner overwhelming support.

Republicans have every incentive to support health care reform with these provisions. They should not be just the “party of no.” Come campaign time, voters need to know what health care reforms Republicans have supported.

Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress are unlikely to have the opportunity to vote on a bill with those limited options. Democratic proposals being advanced on Capitol Hill are far more expansive and expensive.

There is no political downside for Republicans to oppose health care bills that will raise insurance premiums, hike taxes or expand the mountain of federal debt.

The fundamental problem with Democratic health reform proposals is that they are trying to advance two mutually exclusive goals: Cover the uninsured, and reduce health care costs. Most of those who are currently uninsured are unlikely to pay the full cost of their own health insurance. Which means those who are currently insured will pay the bills for them. That raises the cost of health care for people with insurance, which runs directly counter to their No. 1 goal of controlling costs.

The currently insured have figured that out, which is the primary reason why Democratic health reform plans have stalled in Congress.

Resurgent Republic polling makes the popular preference clear. By a margin of 52 percent to 39 percent, voters prefer a plan that “does not provide health insurance to all Americans but keeps taxes at current levels” over a plan that “raises taxes in order to provide health insurance to all Americans.” Republicans and independents fall on one side of this question, Democrats on the other. Indeed, on a host of fiscal and health care issues, independents think far more like Republicans than like Democrats.

The “public option,” or a government-run health insurance plan, does not offer the Democrats a way out of their dilemma. By offering insurance at premiums that the currently uninsured can afford, a public option creates an enormous incentive for employers to dump their employees into the government-run plan, thereby reducing their health benefit costs. That forces employees, most of whom are satisfied with their current health insurance, to lose their current coverage, and they are likely to turn into angry voters.

Placing such emphasis on a public option creates enormous political problems for Democrats. Based on the currently stated intentions of Democratic House members, a bill with a public option cannot pass the House because of concerns among Blue Dogs, and a bill without a public option cannot pass the House because of the preferences of liberals.

But the greatest political downside for elected officials lies among seniors, for whom health care issues loom particularly large. Democratic bills target Medicare Advantage for drastic cuts or elimination, which would deny the almost one-quarter of seniors who have chosen Medicare Advantage plans as their preferred option. That runs directly counter to the president’s repeated assurance that “if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it.”

Seniors see $400 billion to $500 billion in cuts to Medicare to fund the Democratic reform efforts, and they quite reasonably wonder how cuts of that magnitude can occur without savaging their popular program. The Catastrophic Care debacle comes to mind, in which Congress initially passed the new program in 1988 and then rushed to repeal it in 1989 in the face of outraged seniors.

Despite the enormous complexity of the health care debate, the air is beginning to clear. Democratic health reform plans will increase premiums for those who currently have health insurance. They will raise taxes or impose penalties on numerous middle-class Americans. They will take away popular Medicare Advantage plans from seniors.

If the Democrats insist on driving their plans down the throats of Republicans with only Democratic votes, they will create an enormous political backlash that will open the door for Republicans to retake control of Congress.

Whit Ayres is the president of Ayres, McHenry & Associates Inc. and co-founder, with former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, of Resurgent Republic.