The local paper here had an interesting feature today in which a reporter and photographer went to the state's largest hospital and just asked people - from the CEO to emergency room patients - what they thought about the health care bill. Almost without exception, all the poor and working class people - the self-employed home care nurse with no insurance of her own, the cancer patient on Medicare, the guy who works in the hospital laundry room, etc. - are totally opposed to the bill, and the rich, better educated people - the CEO (who worked in the administrations of Reagan and Bush I!), the head of the emergency department, the pediatric nurse - are completely for it and wish it went further. The lone exception is the lone African-American quoted in the story, a short-order cook ferrying a friend's kids to doctor's appointments, who supports the law wholeheartedly.

It is, as you note, a puzzling phenomenon when the Democrats can win over the CEO but not the guy who works in the laundry room.