Okay, I do admit that when Bernie Sanders says something, my ears prick up a bit.
Same when Howard Dean comments on the issue.
But if it is a statement coming from the White House, I tend to hit the "ignore" feature of my brain.
Yes at this point I am trying to pretty much ignore the whole Health Care "reform" efforts.
And instead, be thankful for what did happen in my lifetime.
After all, if LBJ had been as ineffective about Civil Rights as this Administration has been about HCR, Obama would not be President right now - he'd be shucking peas somewhere.
But LBJ pushed effectively for an entire sweeping reform.
The summer of 1965, LBJ didn't run around with segregationists asking them how and what they felt they wanted and needed from Civil Rights reform.
He pushed on everyone in elected office and by the first week of JULY 1965 was signing the Civil Rights Act into law. That's right - by the very fist week in July!
But when you have a Wall Street President, then you are not going to see anything but total ineffectiveness as the main, on camera activity. (We will, I guess, have to ignore all the back room WH deals with Big Pharma and Big Medical Interests, cuz we don't know what got said there.)
Strongest public statement all summer, 2009, from Obama on HCR was this mealy mouthed statement to a Univ. Of Colorado student, "Well, uh, no one knows what will be in the final Health Care bill. But the public option is only one tool in a whole list of tools. And it might be that the public option won't even be in the final bill."
Boy did this Administration ever get that final sentence right:
"And it might be that the public option won't even be in the final bill."
And it took him until August of 2009 to come up with that!
On the credit side - it was totally difficult for Obama to keep his pledges to the Big Medical Interests, and he didn't waiver on keeping those pledges - he persevered, no matter how long it took.
It was hard for the President to keep his pledges and to create such a giveaway - after all he came into office with a 62% mandate for real change, and with 76% of all Americans wanting some form of public option. But his perseverance paid off - Big Time.
Obama's "efforts" just didn't pay off for We the Average People.