ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, Host:
And I'm Melissa Block.
D: NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson reports.
MARA LIASSON: Last year, the Democrats struggled to overcome their own internal divisions on health care, and that public, messy fight hurt the law's image with voters.
HHS S: focusing on popular individual parts of the law. Here's HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on a conference call today, discussing a new administration report.
KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: As many as 129 million Americans, almost half of our population, age 64 and younger could be discriminated against based on their pre-existing health conditions. But thanks to the protections in the Affordable Care Act, by 2014, those citizens will have the freedom and security that comes with having quality, affordable health coverage.
LIASSON: But Sebelius was ready with an example on hand, a real person who had once had her insurance dropped, Dawn Josephson.
DAWN JOSEPHSON: In December of '08, our son was diagnosed with sudden onset strabismus. It's an eye condition, basically affects the muscles in his eyes. We did a lot of different things to try to avoid surgery, but ultimately it came down that he needed to have surgery, and that took place in July of '09.
LIASSON: Pollsters have told Democrats that individual stories like these are a lot more effective than reciting a list of popular provisions, most of which won't go into effect until 2014 anyway. That delay has been a big problem for Democrats, says Drew Altman of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
DREW ALTMAN: Once the major benefits of this law are in place, and tens of millions of people have benefits that they value, they are very hard to take away. It would be the first time. And so there's a race going on between those who oppose the law, who would like to prevent the major and very popular benefits from being put into place, and those who want to see those benefits put into place.
LIASSON: Drew Altman says the ultimate fate of the Obama health care law won't be determined for several years.
ALTMAN: The most important factor there is certainly not a repeal vote in the House or the efforts to slow down implementation, but it's the 2012 election because if the president is re-elected, then the legislation is likely to move forward pretty much as contemplated in the statute, and if he isn't, then all bets are off, and anything could happen with this legislation.
LIASSON: Mara Liasson, NPR News, Washington.