American strongly dislike the individual mandate in the ACA, and the intensity of this opposition has only increased. According to Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll only 32 percent of the country has a favorable opinion of the mandate, while 64 view it unfavorably, and a 54% majority view the mandate very unfavorably. One wonders why Democrats don’t promise to fix this with a less offensive mechanism to achieve the same purpose.

Health insurance premiums for a typical employer-provided family policy grew by an incredible 9 percent this year according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation study. Not only have premiums increased for employers, but the employee cost sharing has gone up as well. But forcing employees to have more skin in the game doesn’t seem to be driving down health care costs.

Can Republicans successfully exploit voters anger about the health care law in 2012 like they did in 2010 if large parts of the electorate thinks the law is already gone?