Running against ObamaCare is more challenging now that opinions have hardened

Candidates and their campaigns are just as likely to mention the scandals at the Veterans Affairs Department or Internal Revenue Service, or weigh in on the Supreme Court’s decision exempting some companies’ health insurance plans from covering all forms of contraception. The redirection extends to the airwaves: Aside from American Crossroads, the Karl Rove-backed super PAC whose recent ads still dwell on the health care law, most campaigns and outside groups have stopped centering their ads on Obamacare…

That flood of advertising explains why in most ways, the electorate’s opinions about the health care law have hardened. A monthly tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation has found roughly the same approval and disapproval numbers for the law (usually a tick below 40 percent for approve, while disapprove usually registers in the mid-40s) every month. Opinions soured a little during the worst months of the implementation, said Drew Altman, president and CEO of the foundation, but soon rebounded to pre-implementation levels.

The numbers aren’t pretty, Altman explained, but they also aren’t likely to change. And if people have already made up their minds about Obamacare, why bother talking to them about it anymore?

“We could ask the American people, ‘Do you think Obamacare would take us to Mars?’ And we would get a perfect split, because it’s so polarized,” he said. “The lines are hardened like the lines in World War I, and they don’t shift.”