This is what I have gathered the past few days using my Lexis Nexis library plus the almighty googler.
Fact-Public Option is a popular provision. Poll after,poll,after poll,after poll,after poll supports this position. However, many Republicans and even some Democratic lawmakers basically ignored these polls,and falsified positions of the Public Option, denying that it was a popular provision, as referenced here.
Fact-Rep.Dennis Kucinich often references his support for a single payer plan, as referenced here,and here,and here,and here. In fact, Rep.Kucinich has been adamant on a single payer system, even for awhile,being against a public option, since he said it doesn't do the job that a single payer system would. It is a fact that President Obama supported a single payer system then in 2003, and is referenced here, but on the campaign trail in 2008, changed his position and gave is reasonings here, and here as President. Kucinich, however, voted against the House Health Care bill, citing that the Public Option wasn't strong enough, as referenced here.
Fact-The U.S. Senate in 2009 had 58 Democratic Senators and two Independent Senators in their caucus. The Public Option is a popular piece of legislation by the polls above. However, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Conneticut, a man who in 2008, campaigned and endorsed Sen. John McCain in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election rejected the public option. It also caused many conservative Democratic senators also sided with Lieberman.
Fact-In the 1990's,many people on both sides blamed Bill Clinton for the failure of healthcare. Although, many of the circumstances imperiling the current healthcare push are in play now. This, and this, and this in case you feel like reading it. Many of those Democrats wanted their own proposals interjected instead of Bill Clinton's plan then. Today, there are many who have taken the opposite position, chastising Obama for not writing a health care bill of his own.
Many then, thought that Clinton was too involved in health care negotiations. With Barack Obama, the exact opposite effect. Then, when President Obama acquiesces to the requests of numerous Democrats in Congress and sets a deadline, he is thrown back out to pasture every time. In fact, it has happened before. Even on Guantanamo Bay.
Fact-The President has been very bipartisan in his efforts to get healthcare. He even tried getting Sen.Olympia Snowe of Maine to the ire of many progressives. Some progressives even accusing the President of purposely sabotaging the public option. Though, it was probably seen by the White House as an attempt to both capture a Republican and lock in the conservative Democrats, it fell through later on.
These aren't all the facts, but they are many. I still wonder though, what can the President or any future President do after all of this? If someone could actually relay how, in which type of strategy that is in the confines of the constitution and legal by American law can he do this? I just don't see it anymore.