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Politico (8/31, Haberkorn) reported that a Kaiser Health Tracking Poll of 1,203 adults conducted August 16-22 (+ / -3%) found “that public support for healthcare reform dropped sharply in August,” down seven percentage points “to 43 percent — while opposition rose 10 points to 45 percent.” Politico characterized the results as “a dagger in Democrats’ hopes that their landmark legislation will help them in November’s midterm.” Some of the law’s insurance industry reforms will go into effect next month, and “while many of these provisions have proved popular in polls, the popularity of the overhaul on the whole hasn’t improved.”

The Washington Post (8/29, Aizenman) reports, “Momentum is building to modify and possibly repeal one of” healthcare reform’s “funding sources” in what “some see…as an opening for further changes to a law Democrats had been determined to leave untouched.” The provision, which “will require businesses to file 1099 tax forms reporting any purchases they make of goods or services above $600,” was “designed to clamp down on tax evasion” and “was projected to raise $17.1 billion over 10 years toward the cost of the health-care law,” but “the measure has prompted alarm from small businesses, who complain that it could prove exceedingly labor-intensive and expensive. Members of Congress from both parties have taken notice, and the Senate is scheduled to vote Sept. 14 on two amendments to an unrelated bill: One would eliminate the 1099 provision; the other would exempt businesses with fewer than 25 employees, raise the reporting threshold to purchases above $5,000, and exclude those made with a credit card.”

Minority Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) writes in a CNN (8/27) opinion piece, “For more than a year, Democrats in Washington have turned a deaf ear to the American people when it comes to health care.” For instance, “Americans told lawmakers in Washington that they wanted reforms that would lower costs; Democrats in Congress increased them,” and when “they said they wanted Medicare protected, Democrat leaders used it as a piggy bank.” McConnell concludes, “It doesn’t take a pollster to show that Americans don’t like the new health care bill. And maybe that’s why Democrat strategists, as reported Friday on CNN.com, are telling their candidates not to talk about their health care votes, even as Republicans increasingly are.”

FOXBusiness(8/26, Peter Morici) Reports:

“For President Obama and Speaker Pelosi, the reckoning is near.

In hubris, they imposed a radical liberal agenda on an unwilling centrist electorate. Now, the economic recovery is failing and voters are set to rebuke Democrats in November.

From electing Scott Brown in Massachusetts to vociferous dissent at town meetings, Americans made it clear they did not want the Democrats’ health-care reforms.

Those create vast new entitlements, levy higher taxes, impose mandates on businesses and state budgets, and increase demand for medical services and drugs, without expanding the supply of health professionals or loosening the monopoly grip of pharmaceutical companies. It imposes few meaningful cost controls.

As feared, businesses face runaway employee health insurance costs, dramatically increasing their incentives to outsource more jobs to Asia.”

Politico (8/20, Smith) reports, “Key White House allies are dramatically shifting their attempts to defend healthcare legislation, abandoning claims that it will reduce costs and deficit, and instead stressing a promise to ‘improve it.’” According to Politico, “The messaging shift was circulated this afternoon on a conference call and PowerPoint presentation organized by” FamiliesUSA, “led by a staffer for the Herndon Alliance, which includes leading labor groups,” and “based on polling from three top Democratic pollsters, John Anzalone, Celinda Lake, and Stan Greenberg.” Politico says that the “confidential presentation…suggests that Democrats are acknowledging the failure of their predictions that the healthcare legislation would grow more popular after its passage.”