CNN poll finds health reform advocates have work to do to convince Americans of the law's benefits

Politico: First lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday asked nurses to "help spread the word" of the benefits of the health law. "More than 1,000 nurses joined the first lady on the call, in which she briefly outlined some of the law's protections and benefits. … The White House education offensive has a lot of ground to cover: A new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows that one-fifth of people surveyed believe the Affordable Care Act signed into law in March will personally help them" (Parnes, 9/29).

CNN: That poll also found that "a majority believes the measure will help families across the country." In addition, 47 "percent of people questioned in the poll say Congress should repeal most of the major provisions in the health care law and replace them with a completely different set of proposals. Forty-nine percent say that the measure should be left as is, or that federal lawmakers should make additional changes to increase the government's involvement in nation health care. ... The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted September 21-23, with 1,010 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points" (9/28).

ABC News: In the meantime, Christine O'Donnell, the GOP Senate candidate in Delaware, called her party's leaders "lazy" in their approach to the health law. "'You're hearing this cop-out excuse that we can't repeal Obamacare as long as Obama is in office,' she told conservative Baltimore talk radio host Tom Marr. 'That is simply not true. That's a lazy approach to dealing with this.'" She also said that if the GOP sought to repeal the law "and the year before Obama's reelection he dares to veto it, he dares to thumb his nose to the will of the people, he's setting himself up to be very vulnerable to a primary challenger'" (Dwyer, 9/28).

Health News Florida/Kaiser Health News: Doctors, too, are seeing some infighting over the health law. "The Florida Medical Association's controversial decision to express a lack of confidence in the American Medical Association is drawing criticism from its northern counterpart in Maine, which says it's time to support AMA leaders." The Florida Medical Association passed a vote of no confidence in the AMA over its support of the health law, but it was a step back from an earlier proposal in that state to end its affiliation with the AMA. Maine in the meantime, send a letter of support to the AMA that says the Florida affiliate's actions threatened the national group's founding principles (Gentry, 9/28).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.