In the Washington Post this morning, http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/cbo-botched-health-care-law-rollout-will-reduce-signups-by-1-million-people/2014/02/04/c78577d0-8dac-11e3-98ab-fe5228217bd1_story.html.
The column was based on a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study, http://www.cbo.gov/publication/45010, that also indicated that healthcare enrollment will be initially reduced by about 1 million (the headline but not the politically most interesting part) due to the problems with the website.
The most powerful reasons, to me at least, that Democrats can defend Obamacare relate to increased coverage of the uninsured and possible positive impacts on the economy, lower healthcare costs. However, the vast majority of signups thus far at least have been from people who already had insurance and the economic impacts are at best fuzzy. At worst are the anecdotal evidence that costs are going up for many and non-partisan reports like this one which say that employment will be negatively impacted – not so supportive of the ‘focus on jobs’ theme that is one of the pivots the President returns to from time-to-time.
If the economic inequality argument does not hold traction, this could end up being a cold November election for Democrats. Since Obamacare also subsidizes health insurance companies if they lose money which is not so well understood (yet) even that argument may have a problem sticking.
I suspect even for those who have most strongly supported the act, these kinds of reports are difficult to deal with.