Jonathan Cohn makes the point I wanted to make after seeing Sen. Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) campaign ad touting the benefits of the Affordable Care Act. Recognizing that the long drawn out process of passing reform allowed Republicans to define the law as a grandmother killing, job shrinking, cost raising monstrosity and ignore some its more popular provisions, Feingold unwraps the latter from the whole and develops (what could become) a fairly powerful model for selling reform. From the ad:

Senator Feingold has always been on our side, fighting the insurance companies.

But Ron Johnson won’t even get in the ring for us.

Russ fought insurance companies to stop insurance companies from denying Wisconsin children health care due to pre-existing conditions.

Mr. Johnson would put insurance companies back in control. … Letting them raise premiums and increase our costs whenever they want.

Ron Johnson: Hands off my health care.

Hands off my health care.

[Feingold speaking] I’m Russ Feingold and I approve this message because you deserve a senator who’s on your side.

Watch it:

This is smart for several reasons. Not only does the public overwhelming support things like investing in preventive care, denying coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions and eliminating annual and lifetime coverage limits, but the GOP also voted against these policies when the bill came up before proposing to repeal them and replace them with similar (although inferior) ideas in their own health care plans. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) even took credit for the preventive coverage provisions in the law! Could you imagine some of these ads?

Of course Feingold is having this conversation in the context of an economic downturn, growing uninsurance and increasing health care costs — all of which is dutifully chronicled and then blamed on the health law. It’s difficult to argue that breaking up the bill into little pieces will turn around public opinion but at least it reiterates the law’s most popular provisions and allows Democrats to defend the law rather than run away from it.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has unveiled a new series of tools to help Americans find affordable coverage options through HealthCare.gov, a web portal first unveiled on July 1st. Starting today, applicants will be able to compare plan benefits, prices, and application denial rates. Currently the site includes information for 4,400 family and individual policies, a list that will grow more insurers submit plans in the coming months.

Here are some of the new features:

- Provides price estimates.

- Expands benefit detail for private insurance plans.

- Offers metrics on the percent of applications denied and percentage of applicants that were charged more than the advertised rate.

- More information about Medicaid and CHIP programs.

Watch Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer at HHS, demonstrate the new features:

Responding to a question from Politico’s Sarah Kliff about insurer criticism of the accuracy of the denial rate — which the industry warns may be inflated — Karen Pollitz, Deputy Director of the Office of Consumer Support, said that the data came directly from the industry. “We asked insurers to report to us on actual denials. So an application is submitted and the insurer does not issue the coverage or refuses to issue the coverage,” Pollitz said, explaining that insurers deny coverage for a number of reasons ranging from an applicant’s pre-existing condition to an illegitimate application from another state. Issuers also informally deny coverage by simply sizing up the applicant without embarking on a formal application process. “I think what we have is a pretty good measure, it’s not perfect, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect in the marketplace today.”

“And in 2014, we’ll be able to take that down from the website because insurers won’t be able to do that anymore,” she concluded.

In 2011, the website will include pricing and comparison information for small businesses. It will also hopefully serve as a guide to states that are looking establish their own exchanges and develop similar web portals.

Raw Story is reporting that a survey — first dug up by the Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel — finds that at least 78 Republicans running for Congress “have professed to oppose abortion in all cases, including where rape or incest are involved.” The survey was sent out by The Republican National Coalition For Life, a political action committee, which “sends out questionnaires every election season to Republican candidates asking them to lay out their positions on abortion“:

Among the more notable candidates backing a full abortion ban are Christine O’Donnell, running for the Senate in Delaware; Rand Paul, running for the Senate seat from Kentucky; Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann; and Missouri Senate candidate Roy Blunt.

But the list does not include a number of candidates known to hold that view, including Sharron Angle, who is running for Sen. Harry Reid’s seat from Nevada, and Joe Miller, running for Senate from Alaska.

Terkel attributes part of the right ward shift to the influence of the Tea Parties and Sarah Palin, but it’s just as likely that many anti-abortion advocates were radicalized by the debate surrounding the health care law.

While Democrats worked hard to prevent the abortion issue from eclipsing the larger debates about coverage expansion and cost control, anti-abortion advocates almost jeopardized the entire effort. Conservative Democrats threatened to hold the legislation hostage unless leadership agreed to include more restrictive language to prohibit public dollars from funding abortions.

Ultimately, conservatives were split in two by competing proposals from Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), with the most committed group backing Stupak’s far more restrictive measure. Stupak’s ultimate concession to Nelson however — the final compromise bolstered the original Nelson amendment with a presidential executive order — allowed anti-abortion advocates to argue that the law still funded non-Hyde procedures and may have contributed to the radicalization of the base. In fact, the health care law, which specifically allows states to pass measures that would prohibit abortion in the exchanges, opened an entire Pandora’s box for conservative advocates, many of whom went on to pass measures restricting abortion access on the state level.

At least some of the Republican candidates arose out of this context and are now benefiting from the conservative enthusiasm to repeal health reform’s “abortion funding provisions.” And many are using the new-found enthusiasm to push far beyond existing law.

California became the first state to establish health care exchanges under the Affordable Care Act last night, after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a series of last-minute health bills into law, overcoming opposition from Anthem Blue Cross and the California Chamber of Commerce. President Obama called Schwarzenegger Wednesday night to “underscored how important this legislation is for California and the rest of the country“:

The legislation signed by the governor Thursday – Senate Bill 900 and Assembly Bill 1602 – will establish the California Health Benefit Exchange and an independent, five-member oversight board appointed by the governor and the Legislature that will be tasked with defining how the exchange will operate.

The exchange will serve as a government-run marketplace from which at least 3 million Californians, many now uninsured, would be able to buy health coverage. It could give individuals and small businesses the same buying power as corporations and other large employers.

The exchange also will funnel billions of dollars to California in subsidies, perhaps as much as $10 billion over 10 years.

Significantly, the California Health Benefits Exchange will be able to “bargain with insurance companies on behalf of consumers and create a relatively easy method for insurance customers to compare the benefits, costs and exclusions in policies offered by competing firms.” State lawmakers hope that by negotiating prices “for a large volume of individuals – getting group discounts the same way that large employers do” beneficiaries will see a “downward pressure on prices.” The California Exchange is partly modeled on the Massachusetts experiment, where regulators used the exchange’s clout to achieve a “6 percent reduction in premiums and saved about $140 million a year on subsidized care for about 180,000 people.”

The Exchange won’t be operational until 2014, but California HHS Director Kim Belshé notes that to regulators it feels like “2014 is tomorrow.” “Developing this kind of exchange is going to take some time, and we have got to get on with it,” she said. First, the state has to appoint the 5-person board (with appointees from the governor, Assembly and Senate), and then that board has to hire an executive director. That process alone could take months. “In order to flip the switch on the exchange, the state will need to test and make sure everything is up and running by the middle of 2013. And the federal government will require readiness by the start of 2014. That’s not that much time.” The state will benefit from the approximately $1 million dollars in planning grants the federal government announced yesterday and future enrollment grants.

Massachusetts, Utah, and Oregon are already operating exchanges and HHS expects other states to begin establishing their exchanges in 2011. If states fail to build an exchange, the federal government will enroll residents in a federal marketplace.