John Stossel: Health Care Reform Will Pass

John Stossel, who profiled Intrade on ABC's 20/20 before the 2008 election, is still tracking political prediction markets. Although he has since left ABC for Fox Business, Stossel has not stopped citing the wisdom of the crowd.

In a post on his Fox Business blog this afternoon, Stossel proclaimed: "Obamacare is coming."

"Uh -oh...the Intrade betting odds that Obamacare will pass are now above 50%," he wrote. "That means that smart people who put their money where their mouths are now think that it is likely that some form of Obamacare will pass before June 30th. The odds dropped as low as 20% after Scott Brown's election, but as I write this, the trading is at 52 cents (winners win a dollar for each 52 cent bet."

As of this writing, the health care contract is trading just above 55, down from the 60% mark it reached yesterday.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, of course, gave traders reason to feel bullish about health care reform yesterday.

During his daily briefing, he said: "I literally believe that what I said on a television show this morning was the President leaves for Indonesia and Australia on March 18th, and we believe that -- I believe that, based on conversations that I've had in the building, that we're on schedule to get this through the House by then."