Ezra Klein lays out the three degrees of the public option:
According to early documents and consistent reports, the health reform plan that the Senate Finance Committee is considering won't have a public option at all. Rather, it'll have some variant of Kent Conrad's co-op compromise. The House plan, meanwhile, has a strong public option that can use Medicare's bargaining power to negotiate low rates and a large provider networks. And Ted Kennedy's HELP Committee, we learned today, will endorse the "level-playing field" public option, wherein the government's insurer has no advantages over the private market.
In order: 1) Co-ops: weak and doomed to fail. 2) Level playing field: Iffy costs and premiums. 3) Robust public option: robust.
In order for healthcare reform to pass the House, it has to be #3 or a mixture of #2 and #3. I can't imagine the TriCaucus voting for co-ops. So at this point, wouldn't it make sense for anyone with healthcare reform as a high priority (like the president, for example) to put his full weight behind the public option? Nothing else will pass the House -- at least not now.