Several weeks after the big push failed, few people are talking about health care reform. The usual suspects – President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other key Democrats, smarting still from the Scott Brown Senate victory in Massachusetts last month – continue to talk (it’s hardly a call or shout now) for change, but the average Joes and Joannes in middle-town America have moved on.

Their concerns are more acute: job security or a job to go to, and personal safety, if the drive a Toyota or Prius, or if terrorists attack. (Of course, for much of the East Coast, the only concern now is dealing with near-record snowfall.) The reality is this: Health care reform is a long-term concern and goal for the majority of people, especially those who have health insurance. For most of these people, it’s like charitable giving. They do it, it’s nice and they feel good about it. But it’s not essential. The same goes for health care reform. It would be nice to have, not an essential.

And as a growing number of state legislatures consider bills to halt their need to require with any federal health mandates, it would appear that health reform is actually unnecessary to most people at this time.