This is the first real sign of good politics on HCR IMHO.  Perhaps Nancy is sick and tired of Olympia getting all the headlines and invitations to 'meetup with the guyz and decide stuff.'

Speaking at her weekly press conference just off the House floor moments ago, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her most impassioned argument in weeks, for including a public option in comprehensive health care reform legislation, arguing against the idea, favored by some conservative Democrats, of mandating that people buy health insurance, and then throwing them into what she called the "lion's den" of the private insurance industry.

In so doing, Pelosi came closer than any member of the Democratic leadership has thusfar to suggesting that the individual mandate should be conditional on the inclusion of a public option. Pelosi declined to elaborate when pressed by TPMDC on whether Congress would revisit the individual mandate if the public option can't survive the Senate. But her implication was fairly clear.

The House, she said, "will not force America's middle income families to negotiate with insurance companies."

Blue Dog Rep. Mike Ross, who made headlines by rejecting a compromise he'd negotiated on a public health insurance option, has suggested to Democratic leaders that the government-run Medicare program be opened to all Americans.

Ross (D-Ark.) has made the suggestion in meetings with House Democratic leaders and brought the idea to the closed-door House Democratic Caucus meeting Thursday.

"I - speaking only on behalf of myself - suggested one possible idea could be that instead of creating an entirely new government bureaucracy to administer a public option, Medicare could be offered as a choice to compete alongside private insurers for those Americans eligible to enter the national health insurance exchange, but at a reimbursement rate much greater than current Medicare rates," Ross said in a statement to The Hill.

The position is surprising because centrist Democrats such as Ross, chairman of the Blue Dogs' healthcare task force, have resisted a public insurance option with rates tied to Medicare. Centrist Democrats who can support a public plan generally prefer that the officials who run it negotiate rates with each provider.