Health care reform: Privately, Barack Obama strongly backs public option
Despite months of seeming ambivalence about creating a government health insurance plan, the Obama White House has launched an intensifying behind-the-scenes campaign to get divided Senate Democrats to take up some version of the idea in the weeks just ahead.
I'd like to think that the president's support for the public option has intensified, too, following his embracing of mandates. And from a purely political standpoint healthcare reform won't pass without a public insurance plan, contrary to what Max Baucus says. So I would imagine that the bulk of the White House effort is to convince conservadems that they have no choice but to make their peace with the public option. Maybe push for a compensatory amendment in there for political cover. Or, at the very least, just vote for cloture and walk away.
The centrists and Blue Dogs are outnumbered on this thing and the president can count.