Despite strong support for public option, its prospects look less likely in Congress (but they'll keep the mandate anyway)

If you ever doubt whether Congress is out-of-touch with Americans, the public option debate in Congress proves it. Yet another poll shows strong support for the public option:

Most Americans would like to see a "public option" in health insurance reform but doubt anything Congress does will lower costs or improve care in the short term, according to a poll released on Thursday.

The survey of 2,999 households by Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO)(TRI.N) shows a public skeptical about the cost, quality and accessibility of medical care.

Just under 60 percent of those surveyed said they would like a public option as part of any final healthcare reform legislation, which Republicans and a few Democrats oppose.

So, there is strong support for the provision, but every day, a real public option gets watered down and weakened because of that opposition from Republicans and some Democrats (those would be the members of Congress owned by the insurance companies.) So, more proof that Congress -- even a Democratically controlled Congress -- is a subsidiary of the insurance companies. Their interests come before ours.

Despite the continuing show of support for the public option, sccording to The Hill, that policy is in dire danger in the Senate (and there's still been no serious effort by the Obama White House to save the provision).

Much more after the jump...

The public option has gone through several stages of evolution this year, but it could soon face extinction unless one of the new versions picks up political momentum.

Senate Democrats have marketed a new “opt-out” public option in recent weeks, and another proposal is expected next week.

The proposals have fended off GOP calls for the elimination of the government-run healthcare plan. But it remains to be seen how much life is left in the public option, because no variation has attracted the backing of 60 senators.

Let's be realistic: Any proposal supported by the conservative Democrats won't be a real public option. (People on Capitol Hill and lots of professional Democrats in DC often think that the American people won't figure these things out.)

If there is no public option, it's hard to see how the health insurance reform package can force a mandate on the American people to buy health insurance from the greedy, ruthless health insurance companies. In fact, back in August, David Waldman wrote a post at DailyKos on the inanity of mandating insurance without a public option:

Maybe I'm just not sufficiently wonky on the health care subject, and after all, this isn't likely to happen to me right away, because I have insurance through my wife that I'm pretty sure we're keeping as long as we can. But I don't get how you can possibly hand me a health care bill with an individual mandate and no public option. If I'm uninsured or poorly insured, and the answer coming out of Congress is that I now have to buy crappy insurance from some private company that has no plan to actually help me pay for my health care without raking me over the coals, then I've gone into this fight an ardent supporter of strong reform, and come out a teabagger.

David was right -- and prescient. Because it's looking more and more like there won't be a real public option (which the insurance companies don't want), but there will be a mandate (which the insurance companies do want.) Yeah, that's reform that works -- for the insurance industry.