I don't think anybody's asking the White House for "magic jingles", but somebody is going to have to explain this thing. In order for it to "sell itself" we need millions of people to sign up for Medicaid (if their states decide to accept it, that is) and many others to buy health insurance who don't already have it. And then we need for the entire country to be aware of this and happy for all those people who are now on Medicaid and government subsidies.
Here's where public opinion stands today, after the ruling:
( I suppose that the 27% of Democrats who want to repeal all or part of the law are single-payer or public option advocates. That's almost a third of the party. Not insignificant ...)
Perhaps the American people will all settle down about this in 2014 when they see how wonderful the plan is working for those who didn't have insurance and now have it. It would be pretty to think so, anyway. But I'm guessing those numbers are only going to harden until it can be demonstrated to most people that they aren't losing anything, not that they didn't gain. With Republicans out there screaming about parasites and welfare queens and the largest tax increases in history, I don't think it's going to be as easy as people think it is.
This will be a battle for perceptions among the majority who are covered under their employers or have Medicare, not reality. Their stake in this is abstract and that abstraction can be defined just as easily in a negative way as a positive way. One of the main reasons that Social Security and Medicare worked was that every last person was in it and once they were in it they didn't want to lose it. This plan does not feature that sort of buy-in. I really think it's a huge, huge mistake for the Democrats to be sanguine about this plan selling itself.
Maybe the president can't produce a "magic jingle" to sell this thing, but somebody needs to. (I vote for Will.I Am.)
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