The End: Pelosi Rolls on the Public Option

Greg Sargent reports:

In yet another sign that the writing is on the wall for the public option, Nancy Pelosi repeatedly refused to say today that a bill without one could not pass the House, backing away from a marker she'd laid down in the past.

Asked directly at a presser about the current Senate bill lacking the public option, and her previous claims that the bill couldn't pass the House without one, Pelosi sidestepped the question. She claimed she'd always said that it was her belief that the public option is the best way to achieve affordability and availability, and that leaders were prepared to listen to anyone with better ideas.

You know whose better ideas Pelosi is listening to? Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who slayed the public option and is now dictating the terms of a compromise to Queen Nancy. Whether health care reform dies a painful death in the Senate or passes with a vast expansion of entitlement programs that set us on the road to single-payer health care and financial ruin, we can all take some measure of solace from the fact that Joementum made the left choke on the public option.