Obama: I didn't sell health care well enough

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) - Blaming himself for coolness to his health care overhaul, President Barack Obama is seeking to reintroduce the law to voters who don't much like or understand it six months after he signed it.

The White House gathered patients from around the country who have benefited from the measure, and the president rolled up his sleeves to address them Wednesday in a sunny Virginia backyard, highlighting changes that take effect at the six-month mark today. These include a ban on lifetime coverage limits, as well as free coverage for preventive care and immunizations. Young adults will be able to stay on their parents' plans until they turn 26, and kids with pre-existing health conditions won't be denied coverage.

"We just got to give people some basic peace of mind," the president said,

"I thank you from the bottom of my heart," Norma Byrne of Vineland, N.J., told the president, explaining she was benefiting from the law's provisions that are closing a Medicare coverage gap for prescription drugs.

But such gratitude isn't the norm.

A new Associated Press poll finds high levels of misunderstanding about what's actually in the law, and more people opposed than in support. And with crucial midterm elections six weeks away, the only Democrats running ads about the historic legislation are the ones who voted "no."

"The six-month anniversary of ObamaCare will be a lonely one for President Obama and congressional Democrats," Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said Wednesday. "The president's plan was unpopular when it was passed in March, and today the wholesale takeover of the American health care system is undeniably radioactive."

Obama ruefully told his listeners, "Sometimes I fault myself for not being able to make the case more clearly to the country."

Still, he took on Republicans who want to repeal the law, daring them to tell that to a cancer patient covered by a new high-risk pool, or a parent whose child was able to get insurance despite a pre-existing health condition.

"It makes sense in terms of politics and polls," Obama said of the GOP position. "It doesn't make sense in terms of actually making people's lives better."