President Obama fiddles while health care burns | Washington Examiner

President Obama fiddles while health care burns | Washington Examiner: "President Barack Obama is trading in his only bargaining chip in the health care debate, but there’s no reason to expect that it will change the game.

The White House has climbed down in stutter steps from Obama’s support for a new government-run insurance program. It was once the only thing that we knew the president supported.

That’s at least one health care myth dispelled, I suppose.

Obama was wise to hold on to the public option for as long as he could, though.

Dropping the idea makes liberals see red. They know that the fastest way to get to a single-payer, European-style system is to start with a public plan. So does Obama.

But the idea never had a chance in the Senate. After six months of trying to keep the concept viable, the White House is admitting what the old bulls of the Senate knew on day one.

It’s too expensive and too socialist for the USA. You can have universal coverage for 9 million healthy, wealthy, civic-minded Swedes. Doing so in a country of 310 million doughnut-munching, upward-striving, liberty-loving Americans of every race and creed spread from Miami to Juneau is a non-starter."