Public Option--resurrected from the dead?

The constant stomping on the public option by insurers and their supporters has made it look like it would take a miracle to get a real public option in health reform through Congress, although many commentators are convinced that the only way to reduce health care costs is by creating a possibility of a national system that people can opt into.  Just passing a law that guarantees that private insurers will get a payload of premium monies from people who will have to be partly subsidized by the federal government to be able to afford it makes no sense at all.  That's because the comparison with other countries suggests that one reason (among several) for our much more expensive health care is that we have private insurers in the mix with no incentive to cut premiums and every incentive to deny coverage.

I suspect that there has been a majority in favor of a strong public option all along, but the right-wing drumbeats suggested that the right's attack on anything governmental (and distaste for anything providing an "entitlement" to those who don't have much while supporting entitlements for private insurers whose business has to, apparently, be guaranteed a profit)  had made inroads among those who bought the nonsense of death-panels, the "government will dictate your treatment", and "if it's government, it will cost more no matter what" couple with "if its government, the private insurers will be 'unfairly' deprived of profits for how can they ever be expected to compete with government" (the latter two pieces of nonsense being based on diametrically opposed foundational arguments, which somehow opponents of a public option tend to disregard).

But now "[a] new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows support for a government-run health-care plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded ...and wins clear majority support from the public."  Balz & Cohen, Public Option Gains Support: Clear Majority Now Backs Plan, Wash. Post (Oct. 20, 2009).  Regretably, the largest majority exists for a state-run, only-available-to-the-uninsured option--that is the most beneficial to private insurers and the least likely to have long-term inroads on increasing health care costs.  Give them a little more time--eventually they'll all catch on, maybe, to the dumb-it-down game being played.