Congress is owned by corporations and those same corporations are playing 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' with us using both political parties. The Dems are the 'Good Cops' and the GOP is the 'Bad Cops', but they are both 'cops' for the corporations.
Notice that when conservatives propose tax cuts for billionaires, the Dems, or the 'Good Cops'(snicker) fold, no need for compromise, but when it's time to do doing something for the greater good of the public, like reform health care, compromise becomes manifest and ANY proposal is GUARANTEED to be COMPROMISED. We should acknowledge this fact that the Dems will always allow any progressive proposals to be watered-down in the name of 'Compromise' (read:Capitulation). Therefore, we should work within this framework and bid twice as high and then once the 'Good Cops' split the difference the resulting compromise would be closer to what we originally desired. I believe the only way to get a public option is to start demanding single-payer, then and ONLY THEN will the public option be accepted as the compromise.