As my post below seems to indicate, the endgame for the Obama Administration is Snowe's Trigger as the "public option." But there are still political bargaining actions that progressives in the House and Senate can do to stop the Obama/Reid/Snowe plan. Of course the Progressive Block in the House needs to reiterate that it will not vote for such a proposal. But in the Senate, Progressives have options too.

One would be to offer an amendment to the likely Obama/Snowe/Reid bill that would make the inclusion of individual mandates be dependent on the inclusion of a public option (Steve M. refines my idea and makes it much better - make the mandate be subject to the Snowe trigger.) Why would Republicans vote for this you ask? Because they SAY they oppose individual mandates and this would be a way to strip them out of the bill.

Do the Republicans mean it? Probably not. But their bluff can be called. If 25 Democrats (assuming some Republicans vote for mandates - Snowe, Collins and Grassley to name 3), then mandates without a public option can be stripped from the bill.

At the very least, this would be a smart move politically, making Republicans own the mandates with the centrist Obama Democrats. Then the crappy health care reform bill that Obama seems to favor will be the High Broder (Obama/Snowe/Ben Nelson etc.) bill, not a progressive bill. My suggestion is based on my view that health care reform without a public option will be a disaster. If you think the public option is not an essential element of health care reform (the view of most of the Dem wonks, like Ezra Klein and Jon Cohn), then you would disagree with this proposal.

Speaking for me only