Negotiation is where you give up some substantive things to get other substantive things, not just appearances. (Somebody tell Rahm.)
If the public option has to be negotiated away, I would support giving it up if, and only if, it is in trade for all of the below:
A 50% tax on health insurance company, hospital corporation, medical device manufacturer and drug company top executive salaries, stock options, and bonuses.
A 50% tax on health insurance company, hospital corporation, medical device manufacturer and drug company profits and retained earnings.
A 50% tax on all physician income, whether individual, corporate or partnership, above $1 million a year.
Dedication of such revenues to a fund helping pay the premiums of the currently uninsured who will be forced to become insured under the current reform plan's insurance company income bonanza provisions.
Abolition of all drug advertising in any and all media.
A five year trigger mandating single-payer nationwide universal health coverage if the above measures fail to improve aggregate national health levels while simultaneously lowering the percentage of GDP spent on health care in that time.
That'll make' em want to keep the public option.
No point in negotiating it away to obtain, what, Republican senate votes?
Aint' gonna get them anyway...