Politico...
For Dems, health law is chronic pain
By David Nather
6/26/11 

Democrats may be on the offensive against the Republican Medicare plan, but they’re not finished playing defense on their health care law. 

That’s the lesson from the latest series of PR crises on the law they’ve had to deal with, including a survey that suggested many employers would stop offering health coverage and a widely circulated news story that reported 3 million middle-class people could qualify for Medicaid because of the law. 

The new criticisms — together with newer versions of the attacks the law has faced since Day One, such as the rationing threat — show the law can produce a constant stream of headaches for its supporters. 

They want to keep the focus on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan, the gift to Democrats that keeps on giving. But in a 1,024-page health care law, there are bound to be new issues — both real and imagined — that will raise concerns about what could go wrong with the massive overhaul of the health system. 

Essentially, the law’s supporters are being forced to play offense and defense at the same time. They’re getting better at it, especially in their aggressive response to the McKinsey & Co. survey of employer coverage. But Democratic strategists want to make sure those issues don’t distract their party from the narrative they’re trying to set up for 2012: a choice between a Democratic law that expands coverage and a Republican Medicare plan that shifts costs to vulnerable seniors. 

“We need to get [the law] defined positively” and “redefine the law for seniors” in comparison with the Ryan plan, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. “Do not do what we always do, which is to chase every rabbit they throw out there.” 

That’s a particular challenge for Democrats because, at this point, the law is mostly imaginary. Some limited benefits have gone into effect, such as letting young adults stay on their parents’ health plan until age 26. But the biggest changes — like coverage for everyone with pre-existing conditions, health exchanges, the individual mandate and the expansion of Medicaid — won’t take place until 2014. 

“There’s a risk that there are not that many new positive things” Democrats can point to about the law before the 2012 election, said Robert Blendon, a Harvard University professor who specializes in public opinion on health care issues. “It gives an advantage to people who are trying to find problems, because there are always going to be problems.” 

One problem Republicans have warned about is the threat of losing workplace health coverage. A McKinsey Quarterly survey seemed to support that, finding that 30 percent of employers could stop offering health insurance after 2014. 

Read the rest of the story at Politico