Here's the latest article from the Chicago Tribune that says the White House is pushing for the public option behind the scenes:
But now, senior administration officials are holding private meetings almost daily at the Capitol with senior Democratic staff to discuss ways to include a version of the public plan in the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring to the Senate floor later this month, according to senior Democratic congressional aides.
This is a good sign because the White House knows that they'll lose significant grassroots support in the base if they don't include a public option in the final bill. However, the downside is that they're looking to push anything that can be called a public option in order to satisfy the base and the worries of "centrist" Democrats in the Senate.
The White House is still playing to the centrists in the Senate and to the Blue Dogs in the House as shown in the article.
[President Obama] has met repeatedly in private with Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who has floated a proposal to allow states to set up government plans as a fallback if commercial insurers do not control premiums.
...
When Obama spoke by phone recently with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., he made a point of the breadth of support for the public option, the senator said in an interview. Cantwell authored a proposal to let states set up public plans that Democrats added to the Senate Finance Committee bill on Wednesday.
The Snowe trigger is a catch-22, and it's designed to never let the public option get started. And the Cantwell basic health plan is not a public option. It's not administered by the federal government, and it's not a federal insurance plan.
The Cantwell amendment allows states to negotiate with private insurers and they can use their subsidies to buy a basic health plan from these private insurers. That's not "public" at all, but rather the allowance of states to buy private subsidized insurance that can be sold to those above 133% and below 200% of FPL. However, it's a good amendment as Jon Walker explains, but still not a real public option by any stretch of the imagination.
It's a good thing the White House is now pushing for a public option, but it's not good that they're pushing for anything they think can be called a public option in order to satisfy these "centrist" Democrats.
But Obama and Reid are treading carefully, wary of including a provision that would scare off moderates such as Snowe, Nelson and Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., who have all indicated they would not support a national public plan.
The main take-away from this article is for us to continue supporting our progressives in the House on a real public option, and not anything that can be called a "public option" just to satisfy those in the base and centrist Democrats worried about an actual real public option.