By Dr. Merrill Matthews
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas With Americans widely & increasingly rejecting ObamaCare frustrated Democrats are bringing in professional marketers to craft a simpler message prior to Novembers Election. Democrats were promised repeatedly by their leadership and professional left that once ObamaCare passed the public would embrace it.
Voters would even reward Democrats at the polls in November.
Former President Bill Clinton for example told audiences that the reason Democrats faired so poorly in the 1994 off-year elections when Republicans took over the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years was his failure to pass ClintonCare.
However no one claimed in 1994 that Democrats were beaten for failing to pass health care reform; everyone understood it was because they tried to pass a massive government-run takeover of the health care system.
Had Democrats succeeded as President Obama has now done the beating would likely have been worse.
And thats what were seeing in the polls.
The Rasmussen poll has consistently shown that 55 to 60 of the public wants ObamaCare repealed even as Team Obama tries to convince the public of its benefits and of leaving Democrats in charge.
But with oblivion looming in the November elections the White House and its allies have decided that the non-Ivy-League-educated rabble i.e. the vast 
majority of Americans is too stupid to understand how good ObamaCare is.
So theyve brought in the high-paid consultants to help with the messaging.
As Ben Smith of Politico reports Families USA held a conference call featuring Lake Research Partners Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and the Herndon Alliance which did some marketing tests on how to explain ObamaCare to Stupid.
Use personal stories coupled with clear simple descriptions of how the law works. One of the most powerful findings of this research is that a compelling personal story helps tremendously to make the health care reform law real break down resistance tap into anger about how things were under the old system provide hope for how health care reform can make it better and help voters retain knowledge of key provisions.
But some of the stories intended to break down resistance are just flat wrong. In one illustration a 23-year-old woman has a 6-year-old child with asthma. The family had coverage through the husbands employer but he lost his job. He got a new one but the new employer imposed a pre-existing condition exclusion and wouldnt cover the asthma. ObamaCare is supposed to stop that. Except that for most people with employer-provided coverage that wouldnt happen. Federal legislation passed in 1996 says that if you have credible coverage which the large majority of employer-provided coverage is the new employers coverage cannot impose a pre-existing condition exclusion. The report also says It is critical to reassure seniors Medicare will not be cut. Except Medicare will be cut by more than $500 billion over 10 years. Thats
how Democrats helped pay for ObamaCare.
And then theres a list of donts such as dont say the law will reduce costs and deficit. But thats exactly how Democrats sold the plan to the public despite the fact that most economists and health policy experts warned that ObamaCare would force health care costs to explode.
ObamaCare is so unpopular not because the public is too stupid to understand it but because millions of Americans understand the law better than many members of Congress.
Weve already seen Rep. Henry Waxman D-Calif. lash out at companies that were taking a billion-dollar write down because of tax changes in retirees drug benefits. The outraged Waxman demanded hearings until his staff explained to him that the companies were doing exactly what they needed to do under the law. He canceled the hearings.
And then there were four Democratic senators who sent a letter to the head of the IRS in July complaining
Not only will a 1099 form be necessary for millions of new transactions the stricter requirements force business owners to collect taxpayer identification information from vendors contractors and other companies.
Yes senators and you voted for it so its a little late to complain. By contrast weve seen the remarkable phenomenon of Americans actually trying to read the 2700-page health care monstrosity which I suspect is more than the majority of the members of Congress have done. And the voters have been trying to get answers from their elected representatives when they could find them about specific provisions in the bill. ObamaCare has been one of the most widely discussed and debated pieces of legislation in our lifetimes. The public has a pretty good idea about whats in the bill and they dont like it.
Yes ObamaCare needs to be explained to Stupid and I suggest they start with the Democrats who voted for it.
Merrill Matthews is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas Texas.
