Many Americans tell pollsters they are confused about the health care reform law or feel negatively about its provisions — a condition that could worsen, rather than improve, over an even longer implementation phase, some Democratic sources suggested during interviews.
“As for 2014, it’s hard to see how it helps Democrats,” conservative political analyst Scott Rasmussen told RCP in an email. “Let’s assume that employers hold off on staff cutbacks because of the implementation delay. That will simply mean that we’ll be hearing the same stories about anticipated cutbacks in the middle of next year rather than this year.”
In a commentary, Rasmussen recently wrote that Americans want to control their health insurance choices in tandem with paycheck tradeoffs. In other words, if given the choice to go lighter on gold-plated coverage and heavier on their take-home pay, workers would choose the compensation over the investment in a hedge against medical risks. But that is not the choice or the mindset the law anticipates.
“Sixty-six percent think it’s more important to let workers pick their own mix of insurance coverage and take-home pay,” Rasmussen, the president and founder of Rasmussen Reports, wrote in May. “If they had a choice, 59 percent would choose a less expensive health insurance plan that covered only major medical expenses and a bigger paycheck. Even a majority of those in the president’s party would select that option.”
