Racism and healthcare reform

As someone who lives in the South and who is currently working for healthcare reform, I've been interacting with some people who are deeply suspicious of the President's push for healthcare reform and who believe the myths about it. Most people I've talked to DO support healthcare reform, (of course we're talking to mostly registered Democrats) but they haven't yet been as publically vocal as the right-wing.
Last year during the election, we talked to so many white 'Democrats' in Louisiana who said they would not vote for Obama for reasons that seemed to be related to race in some way. I guess I just thought that once Obama was elected, white Southerners would have to deal with that fact and would be stretched by it once they realized the world hadn't ended because we elected a black man as president. But right now there is this very vocal minority that is behaving as if Obama is singlehandedly destroying the country. This post at Daily Kos has a really good analysis of the racism underlying the teaparty, birther, and anti-healthcare movements.
I don't know how we begin to try to counter this conservative backlash, but I believe that understanding the racial logic behind it is crucial. It goes to show that the struggle against racism in this country is ongoing. In light of this backlash, we need to recommit to work for healthcare reform, because this fight is about peoples' lives.