If you want to fool yourself into believing that fairy tale, you are entitled. The sad truth is that despite Bush's "strategic" move (actually it was a lame attempt at Clintonesque triangulation) we are closer to full scale socilized medicine than ever before. The "left" has found plenty of new arguments and it is on a roll. Thus, even in pratical term this strategic ploy proved all too clever and those who supported it now have egg on their "pragmatic" faces.
The Left argues in general that "There are 40 million uninsured! People are dying!" etc., etc.
But the uninsured, as we know do not vote as a bloc.
The elderly do vote much more like a bloc.
And the best, really the only, argument the Left had for them to support fully socialized healthcare was prescription cost.
The Left was depending on them to drive socialized medicine to completion - and now they aren't as exercised about it as they were.