I'm thinking the whole storm the last few days of Obama and others saying "public option isn't a necessary part of reform but only a sliver of the plan...." is a trial balloon floated by the White House. These are savvy people...a lot of Clintonites who lived thru the '94 debacle, especially Rahm. I can't imagine they'd make these kind of apparent tactical mistakes unless there was a reason behind them. To have the President give a web address just 3 weeks ago saying he wouldn't sign a bill without a public option and then publicly cave so soon after is hard to believe.
I'm hoping changed their rhetoric on this just to see what the polls showed and what GOP said they would do without a public option. They are voting against whatever bill comes out of there. On Meet the Press when they asked Sen. Coburn if he would vote for the bill without a public option, he still pretty much said no - then he started bringing up these new government jobs the rest of the bill would create and how he couldn't support that. So they are going to find a reason to vote against it because in this case, their base, about half of the indepedents polled, and their monied interests are aligned in favor of defeating it.
The White House knows this now. And I can't imagine they would have pushed so hard for a public option just so recently if they knew they only had 43 firm votes for it in the Senate, as some are reporting. Like what could have possibly changed in the last 3 weeks that made them think they were going from 60 possible votes (or at least 55+) to 43.
I think we are going to see some posturing in coming weeks. I can't imagine Kent Conrad - Dem from North Dakota would go on Fox News and say there aren't the votes for a public option unless this was part of some larger strategy, even if Conrad won't support it.
That's my hope anyway. The alternative is that about 12-15 Dems in the Senate are completely bought off by the Health Industry and/or the Obama White House is really screwing up strategically and tactically on this issue. I really hope neither of those are it. And the other alternative is that Obama never really wanted a plan with a Public Option that badly but just thought it was the best way to help hold down costs.
Now that that seems unachievable he's moving on to salvage the bill. One story I read recently theorized that Obama's #1 goal was "universal coverage" however that is possible more so than a public option - so I guess a plan similar to what Massachusetts has. He wants to have the big signing ceremony being the first President to ever guarantee coverage for every American.
The problem with that is without the cost controls of the Public Option in the bill it won't be as budget-friendly in the long term and may impede other programs they want to implement. And then he still may lose some Democratic votes in the Senate based on how to pay for it.