Does the White House need to change its message/strategy on health care?
Yes. I think the difficulty is that the White House has not really had a single strategy or good strategy. I think there was, sort of, the expectation in the White House that the day they signed the bill that everybody would come on board. And I think what they need to do is essentially go back to what I would say are the basics. ‘Here’s what the bill’s about. Here’s why it makes a difference. Here’s why it’s good for you and it’s good for America.’ Polls show that individual provisions are popular but the overall bill is not. How do you explain that? The reason the overall bill is less popular than the elements is that it is like so many pieces of legislation. You only need to find the one link to be able to cut a hole there and the chain fence essentially unravels. And I think that’s in part what’s happened with this. I think overall the public doesn’t know, doesn’t understand it enough and has fear in terms of ‘what it means for me.’ And what we see here is a great division. And the
