David Leonhardt of the Times asks...

...how the current health care bill could have inspired such skepticism from voters:

The unified Republican message is part of the answer. So is the fact that Mr. Obama never found a strong, consistent way to sell the bill. That said, health reform was never going to be easy.

Something like 90 percent of voters already have insurance. Many imagine that they will never lose it. Many people even believe they don’t pay for their insurance, because the money comes out of their paycheck before they see it. (They do pay in lost income.) Polls also show that Americans are more aware of our medical system’s strengths than its weaknesses (like needlessly high error rates). As for Medicare being on course to break the bank — voters rarely get excited about future fiscal problems.

So health reform was probably destined to inspire more fear than hope. It’s been that way since Truman.