America stepped up and took the wind out of the sails of the Obama administration’s plan to socialize America’s health care system.

It was not Republicans nor Blue Dog Democrats that derailed Jimmy II’s grand plan – credit this one to vociferous citizens exercising their rights, rescuing America from the brink of yet another irreversible government entitlement, and indicating a potential mid-term rout of Democratic ranks nationwide if they didn’t reverse course.

Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Barack Obama’s administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

It was never intended to be an option.

Meanwhile, Obama gets off the gas and on the back-pedal.

“All I’m saying is, though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform,” Obama said at a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colo. “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it.”

I think he said that just as he spied a cream pie with his name on it in the crowd.

No matter how liberal Dems spin this, it is a sound and stinging defeat in the wake of a Democratic super-majority.

The plan now may be to create a member-run non-profit option to compete with private insurers.

…but that may be moot. It may be more over than Obama is willing to concede at this juncture.

On the same day that a Cabinet member signaled the administration’s willingness to forego inclusion of a public health insurance option in the final version of health care reform legislation, a Texas Democrat who is also a registered nurse suggested that the public option might be a deal breaker for at least some House Democrats.

So much for Change^®.

More to come…