To begin with, as of the date of Kip's post, the HELP Committee bill had no bill number, and wasn't available for the public to read.  I don't know if this has changed, but the only thing available at the time of Kip's analysis was the draft bill on the committee's website.  It was in two pieces, the second of which contained the details on the Community Health Insurance Option, and was the chairman's markup.  

I have not compared the July 2 Bill Text that is linked via the Kaiser link provided in Jeralyn's Open Thread, with the markup provided via link in Kip's post, so your guess is as good as mine whether either of these two bills are the final HELP committee bill.

But here's part of what Sullivan has to say:

Section 3106 requires the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS, the federal agency within which Medicare and Medicaid are housed) to create multiple health insurance companies that, together, will make "public" health insurance available for sale to the non-elderly in every state in the country.  The Secretary will not be using federal employees to make this happen.  The Secretary is required, rather, to contract with nonprofit insurance companies to create health insurance policies that will qualify as "community health insurance options."

Kip goes on to dissect the language of the draft bill, and says:

But as we read on, we encounter provision after provision that indicates the HELP Committee definitely envisions a balkanized "option." Some provisions reveal that intention by referring to "options" plural. Others reveal it by giving the states the authority to determine essential features of "options" sold within their boundaries, such as the required reserve levels and maximum benefits. A single national program can't have 50 different reserve requirements and 50 different benefit levels.

Anyone else feeling a little uncertain yet that what is described in the posted summary may not be all it's cracked up to be?

Section 3106 is a mess, but its meaning becomes clear after several readings. Section 3106 does not create the "Medicare-like" program promised by Jacob Hacker, HCAN, Howard Dean, and other "option" advocates. Instead it proposes a program that authorizes DHHS to create numerous health insurance companies tied to geographic areas, and to contract with members of the existing insurance industry to create and possibly run those companies.

Before people leap onto a bandwagon in the belief that, because Ted Kennedy's name is in some way attached to a "public option" that it is, in fact, as great as it is being advertised, I would urge them to read the markup, and read the analysis of it.