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Judging by the amount of rhetoric emanating from all levels of media this week, it would seem Obama’s health care plan that was a cornerstone of his election platform in the fall is going to fail. And what’s worse, very few people can go beyond the hyperbole to make a decent argument for or against reform. The most outrageous was the clamoring of the “death squads” in ‘socialized’ health care that decide who lives and who dies.

A brief overview of Obama’s recent health care struggle:

• Obama to abandon bipartisan health reform by Toby Harnden — Telegraph.co.uk

This article outs (via Open Secrets) Senators who have received money tied to the health insurance industry. Certainly, an important consideration when you have a Democratic majority in a House that has trouble passing the health care plan that championed Obama’s election platform. Though as the article points out, the list “is not presented to suggest that any of the congressional members have been ‘bought’ by the health insurance industry. But what flesh-and-bone human being would not at least be influenced by such largesse?”

• Pulling the plug on the public option by T.L. Caswell — Truthdig.org

And as usual in American politics, the coverage slowly walks away from serious attempts to reform health care, real discussions of alternatives, or comparative studies with other countries, and more and more this issue becomes a test to see if Obama fits the President’s shoes.

The outrage directed at Obama from both Democrats and Republicans, left and right, is curious, if anything. There are those who have internalized his campaign of hope and change, as if these ideals can only surface and spread via Obama alone. We are the sheep and Obama the shepherd, as far as this group is concerned.

There are others, though skeptical of naïve Obama worshippers, certainly do wish he has a more successful term — or at least month (it’s been a rough 8 years) — than Dubya. Not just for their personal enjoyment, but for the whole country. And maybe, and this might be a stretch, to shift international public opinion on the United States.

I think these people would side with William Pfaff in his recent piece on Truthdig, who blames the American public: seniors who are convinced Medicare is not a government program, but rather “delivered through the benevolence of hospitals and doctor, or by divine providence”; or those citizens who stubbornly believe the “American system is superior to all others on Earth…If not, why does everyone in the world want to come to live in the United States?”

• You can’t blame Obama for American stubbornness by William Pfaff — Truthdig.org

And then there is David Michael Green who sees Obama’s commitment to bipartisanism as nothing more than “total capitulation” to “the folks who have such small minorities in Congress that they can’t even muster forty percent of Senate votes to block consideration of legislation by filibuster”.

• Guess what? He’s a terrible President by David Michael Green — Counterpunch.org