The problem with supporting the current HCR bill is that there is a sizable fraction of the population who feel passionately that their needs to be an alternative to the private health insurance industry. Now these folks recognize that we are not going to replace the current system with a single payer system. But they would settle for some competition for the private industry to keep it honest. The industry is obviously terrified of competition. A large fraction of the population would say that this is because they are thieves. This is why they support some sort of public competition some public alternative to private insurance.
The polling data was showing a bare majority in favor of the overall HCR bill before the Senate allowed Joe Lieberman to re-write it. While it still contained at least a glimmer of an alternative to private insurance no matter how neutered. The behavior of the White House and Senate Leadership signaled that they valued the sensibilities of Joe Lieberman more than roughly a third of their over-all support for the bill. The support that was predicated essentially on hatred of the insurance companies and an insistence that the bill contain some alternative to private insurance. When you cast that aside, you cast them aside. You can't afford to do that. They are perhaps the biggest single part of your coalition. That is stupid. This is the plain activist argument. This is, in my view, why the thing is going to be poison. You could neutralize it to a degree by getting rid of the mandate but you still wouldn't close the enthusiasm gap.
The policy wonks can argue about the merits and I've heard people I respect on both sides of this argument. But the fact is that if you get killed at the polls over it most of it will get repealed. If you have to resort to wonkery to sell it your doomed. It has to be obviously better than the status quo and of course the mission of the 'moderates' from day one was to take everything out of it that could be pointed to as an obvious improvement. You're left with wonkery. Good luck with that. If it is going to come down to asking people to sacrifice for the greater good during a period of recored unemployment, well good luck with that as well.