>>> with months to go before open enrollment begins for obamacare, there's good news for the white house coming out of california. the state has revealed the prices for the health care plan under the affordable care act and the rates are lower than previously expected. however, the president's signature piece of legislation still faces an uphill battle when it comes to winning over voters. a new cnn poll finds 54% of americans are opposed to the law. that number is relatively unchanged since the bill was signed into law three years ago. 35% oppose the law because it is too liberal while 16% say it's not liberal enough. meanwhile, if you already have insurance through your employer, you may still feel the effects of obamacare. the "new york times" reports many companies are looking to avoid the so-called cadillac tax which penalizes companies that offer high-end health care plans to the employees. some employers looking to cut back on costs, meaning some of the more generous health care perks you enjoyed may be a thing of the past. the burden of making sure the affordable care act has a smooth rollout falls on the shoulders of secretary health and human services kathleen sebelius . the hill says several democrats are already concerned over sebelius' handling of the bill since it became a law three years ago. acknowledging any missteps could tip the scales of the 2013 midterm elections in favor of the gop.

>> john heilemann, i'm sure you're hearing it all the time. i heard it, max baucus came in, talked to us before he retired. said there was the number one concern next year, implementation of obama care. they don't think they're up to it. they think the law of unintended consequences is going to blow up in the democrats' face. what do you think?

>> well, i think it's absolutely obviously a political concern for democrats. because this law has not -- almost, most of the provisions have not gone into effect. so most people don't understand what it is and we still don't know what the economic consequences are going to be. there's the level of uncertainty still hangs over it and the politics of it were miserable for the administration throughout its passage. until people start to feel in a significant way the benefits of the law, whatever benefits those are, the political support for it is going to remain tenuous. and so in this period of transition into the law, it remains politically vulnerable.

>> it is interesting that 16%, willie , actually wanted to be more liberal. you look at those numbers. there are a lot of times during the vietnam war where a majority of people in america disapproved of the handling of vietnam and it was america 's most unpopular war. well, a big chunk of those people wanted us to be more aggressive, more engaged in vietnam. you've got the opposite case here.

>> it's interesting if you look at that number 54% oppose the affordable care act according to the cnn poll. i wonder how much people understand to begin with about obama care. if you ask anybody in this room what are the particulars of obama care, i'd be shocked if anyone could tell you exactly what it means next year.

>> no, absolutely. the difference between this and, say, the prescription drug benefit under medicare that was passed under bush is everybody basically understood, all seniors did that you can sign up with an insurance company and get drug coverage. and when you look back on that, there was a lot more money appropriated by congress to implement a much more simple proposal than obama care. and i think the way they organized obama care, the president and this plan are at the mercy of the states. and where you have governors who really want to implement it, california's a good case, colorado, oregon, washington , my hunch is the implementation is going to go well. but in states where republican governors are very hostile to it, it may not go very well. and yet the president's going to be on the hook for that. so it's going to be complicated.

>> it is going to be complicated. it's also going to get really complicated. stories coming out in the "new york times" that i don't really -- i'm having a hard time getting my arms around as far as intel, political intel. we're going to talk about that in one minute.

>> political intelligence firms. that was in the washington post yesterday.

>> where the white house preps hedge funds on certain items. we're going to talk about that in one minute. first, some news over the weekend that --

>> yes.

Continued here:

‘Cadillac tax’ takes toll on employer health care plans