It's stunning that Obama is saying he will come up with something in the 11th hour. I'll believe it when I see it, and if I see it I probably won't like it as Obama has his 'tools' out this morning:

As Obama prepares for a Wednesday night speech to Congress in a risky bid to salvage his top domestic priority, political adviser David Axelrod said a public plan is not the core issue in the health care debate. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs

danced around a question about whether Obama would veto

a bill without the public option.

The president "believes the public option is a good tool," said Axelrod, who joined with Gibbs in a one-two punch on the Sunday talk shows. "It shouldn't define the whole health care debate, however."

Wow speaking of tools!

So Obama is going to talk to us Wednesday but yet has his tools out telling us the public option is just something to consider but isn't all that important. I think I will save myself the aggravation and not even watch the speech.

But, whether they formally design a "trigger" (and I think we're in a "trigger" situation now) or not -- sooner or later we'll have hundreds of millions of people without health insurance.... There is after all only so much money a family can send to an insurance company for premiums before they actually can't do it any more.

So if the numbers of uninsured keep rising AND there is a less-than-robust public option already in place THEN maybe we don't have to go through all this crap again.  AND maybe we don't have to wait another 15-19 years.

Maybe that less-than-robust option could be expanded to something useful without all this hoo-ha.

Reasonably serious public option is the absolutely necessary first step in that withering away process.

Obviously, shutting out even the discussion of single-payer right from the get-go was a gigantic mistake because it shifted the whole discussion way over to the right.  As BTD keeps hammering away -- and appears to be the only public voice who gets the concept -- it's insane to start negotiations somewhere in the middle and expect to end up in the middle.

As a result, the entire HCR discussion has been and continues to be deeply dishonest on both sides.  The core issue is whether private, profit-making middlemen have any business being in health care to begin with or are just gigantic open mouths sucking vast amounts of money -- our money -- out of the health care equation and bringing literally zero benefit to it in return.

Now, if it could be shown to have 130 million enrollees, like the original Hacker plan before the "progressive bait and switch", perhaps. But nobody says that.

If the health exchanges could be shown to work, perhaps. But the best example I've been given is RomneyCare, and that hasn't had the claimed benefits.

I understand the advantages, from a process standpoint, of  having progressives with spines somewhat stiffer than wet noodles. But from an outcomes standpoint, I'm with Ian Welsh:

Folks, you are being sold a bill of goods.  The people shilling for this version of the public option, whether politicians or others, are shilling for something that won't work (not that even a nominal public option is likely to be in the final bill).

The best thing that can happen, at this point, is for nothing to be passed.  Because right now it looks most likely you are either going to be forced to buy insurance without an option to buy a government plan, or you're going to be forced to buy insurance with the possibility of buying government insurance that's no cheaper than private insurance, and which may not even be able to stay in business (it does have to succeed without any subsidies.)

Forcing millions of people to buy junk insurance -- and paid for by taxing the people who do have insurance -- is, in my view, a stiff price to pay for allowing the progressive block to regain a modicum of self-respect.

NOTE And if they really had spines, and really wanted to show they meant business, they'd coalesce behind HR676 anyhow -- even if only as negotiating tactic! Here's a helpful resolution, with WHEREAS's and everything:

   Proposed resolution for the Congressional Progressive Caucus

    WHEREAS the Congressional Progressive Caucus has evaluated the "public option" in HR 3200;

    WHEREAS the CPC has determined that the "public option" in HR 3200 is not "robust";

    WHEREAS HR 3200, therefore, is just another Massachusetts-style bailout for the health insurance industry;

    WHEREAS a Massachusetts-style debacle on a national scale will set back the movement for universal coverage under a single-payer system;

    WHEREAS the CPC has repeatedly put Democratic leaders on notice that they intend to vote against legislation with a weak "public option"; therefore be it

    RESOLVED that the Congressional Progressive Caucus members will instead support an amendment to HR 3200 that replaces HR 3200's language with that in HR 676, The United States National Health Care Act.