Unless Obama and the White House can get the president’s signature healthcare law humming smoothly, it will pull the president’s and the Democratic Party’s approval ratings underwater in 2014.

“The biggest weight on the class of ‘14 is the success of Obamacare,” said one former senior administration official. “I’m sure there are Democrats up for reelection who are lighting candles into the New Year with the hope that it all goes well in 2014 or it’ll be like 2013 never left.”

White House confidence is bolstered by the surge of people who have enrolled in the law in recent days. More than 1.1 million people have now enrolled, and while that is lower than what the administration had hoped for, it makes reaching the 7 million enrollees projected by the Congressional Budget Office more realistic.

The hope is that the New Year will amount to a fresh start for Democrats, and that Obama will be able to tout the number of people newly insured under the law.

Yet problems will be hard to avoid. Starting on Jan. 1, people will begin going to hospitals and clinics to use ObamaCare. Every time someone’s insurance doesn’t cover the charges they’d expected, it will likely get written up.