If It's So Obvious...?

I had a conversation with a co-worker that left even me momentarily speechless.  A staunch republican, she and I had had some tense disagreements until I decided I should just not approach her with my political ideas, ever.

But she brought up health care.  And said, in words I cannot exactly recall, that she had been anticipating single payer health reform, because there is so much abuse by the insurance industry.

After my head exploded as though I were a cartoon character who swallowed an Acme explosive, I agreed with her, and said I couldn't understand why Congress wasn't pushing for single payer.

Well, I know why some of Congress is not pushing for single payer.  Because they are totally owned subsidiaries of corporate interests.  And I know that various Blue Dog Democrats, also beholding to, and brainwashed by, corporate sponsorship, quake with the fear that their constituents, middle class folks like me, will reject them if they support a government sponsored health care plan.  

What I don't understand is why the rest of Congress, and the White House, haven't shouted from the rooftops and pursued universal health care with every breath they've taken since November of 2008.  It is so obviously the least expensive and most civilized way to provide health care.  And the alternative is so obviously, with so much evidence to back it up, evil.

It's been embarrassing, listening to liberal pundits wondering why the Dems haven't been pushing health care reform during this election season.  What it amounts to is, "Did you guys really believe in this, or not?"  They are, and have been since the corporate Tea Party assault on town halls in the summer of 2009, cowering as though they have been caught doing something dirty.

Which leaves brave souls like Dennis Kucinich, Anthony Weiner and Nancy Pelosi to defend not just the Democratic Party ideals, but the whole middle and lower classes, all 97% of us, from the 3% who own the whole damned thing.

It makes me just want to say, "Put your man-pants on."  Or something equally ridiculous.