If you are like me, by now, you’ve been subject to a deluge of cable news punditry about what the election results mean. Not to be out done, politicians have used acceptance speeches, concession speeches, and basically any appearance that might include a podium and microphone to give their reasons for what the election results must mean. Like someone who had a great first date and never got asked on a second one, everyone is parsing every last moment to figure out: why.

And for some unexplainable reason, opponents of reform have decided to misguidedly spin this as a referendum on the new health care law. Hint: You’re wrong.

Though I’m not a CNN pundit, I have many times injected reality into my disappointed friends waiting by the phone, hoping for that call. So let me do us all a little favor and help inject a little reality into what the election doesn’t mean (again, hint: the election was not a referendum on the health care law):

• Exit polls showed that 61 percent of people named the economy as their most important issue for the election this year. The health care law ran a distant second, at only 19 percent of those polled.
• Nearly half of those polled wanted to repeal health care, but the other half wanted it expanded or to stay in place.
• Opposing the health care reform bill did not necessarily help win elections.

I don’t want to paint a picture that all things are rosy on the health care law front. We did have some setbacks directly related to the health care law. Ballot initiatives to amend state constitutions to prohibit making participation in the health care system mandatory (or trying to hurt the provision in the Affordable Care Act that mandates everyone to have health insurance) passed in Arizona and Oklahoma. At the same time, a similar ballot initiative in Colorado failed. Does this mean that not everyone supports the new health care law? Sure. Does this mean that the entire election was about the new health care law and there is now some mandate from Americans to repeal it? Not even close.

With all the headlines screaming that the people want to be heard: perhaps it’s time the politicians and pundits start listening and stop making their own conclusions.

Cross-posted on Womenstake.