Perspective

We found out this morning the public health insurance option amendment votes we expected in Senate Finance today won't come before the committee until Tuesday. Obviously, we'd love all 13 Dems to do the right thing and support a real strong national public health insurance option. But the reality is that we may lose a handful. Mike Lux:

On a committee this conservative, far more conservative than the Senate as a whole, if we only get seven votes for the public option amendments, that would have to be considered a major political victory, and a sign that the public option can definitely get a majority vote on the floor.

Of course, the traditional media won't report it that way -- anything that goes against their cast-in-iron conventional wisdom belief that the public option is dead will not be reported.

He's right. The press has already buried the public option, and no matter how much evidence they see to contradict their predetermined plot line, most refuse to accept that a public health insurance option is alive and well and popular - both in Congress and with the public.

Like I said before, the Senate Finance Committee is the outlier, and if we get the expected seven or eight votes on Tuesday, that's great news for the future of the public health insurance option.

UPDATE: Sam's got a great write up about a polling memo we sent up to the Hill yesterday. The gist: voters don't want to be forced to buy health insurance without the choice of a public option.