For Obama, a Signature Issue That the Public Never Embraced Looms Large

… Mr. Obama’s team holds out hope that with the validation of the court ruling, the health care law will generate more popular support as it is phased in through 2014. … Some supporters have argued that other social programs in the past were controversial at first before becoming embedded in American society. But polling suggests that is not so. Social Security was popular from the start, supported by 73 percent of Americans in early 1937 and 78 percent the next year in Gallup polls. Medicare had the approval of 62 percent in early 1965 and 82 percent by the end of that year in Harris polls. [cont.]

Peter Baker, New York Times