Presidential candidate Obama speaks out against a private health insurance policy mandate.

[Bonobo]

33. Sadly, PB, it doesn't EVEN require that.

You don't actually need to analyze information on this one. You just need to think and be honest with yourself.

And Obama (candidate Obama that is) said it very well when he said that mandating the purchase of a house would not end homelessness.

Clearly this was a bone thrown to insurance companies to assuage the sting of having to (gasp) insure patients with pre-existing conditions (eventually, that is). But it did nothing to remove the really expense-adding burden on the country's medical system (for-profit health care) and so was nothing more than a band-aid and some makeup.

Does "Obama-care" make things better for a lot of people? Yes.

Does it virtually guarantee that we will not have an actual "public option" in the next 20 years? Yes. How? Because, as in all things Obama, he has RESET the right-left tug-of-war to the RIGHT by STARTING with what could have been the eventual compromise (THE PUBLIC OPTION WAS THE COMPROMISE!) and winding up with a "negotiated" republican position.

And NOW, that Republican position that Obama took is being called the "Left Wing" position and so the entire ball field has been shifted hugely to the right as a result.

This, more than anything, has been the defining legacy of the Obama/Clinton behavior. A steady shift to the right being allowed because they do not properly advocate for the actual positions of the left.

And now, on DU even, people have no fucking idea what a Democrat even IS anymore.