Public Flogging -- UPDATED

Politico's Mike Allen is reporting that enough Blue Dogs have turned against a straight up public option bill this week to force the Dems into a trigger scenario in the House.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi counted votes Thursday night and determined she could not pass a “robust public option” — the most aggressive of the three forms of a public option House Democrats have been considering as part of a national overhaul of health care.

Pelosi's decision—coupled with a significant turn of events yesterday during a private White House meeting—points to an increasingly likely compromise for a “trigger” option for a government plan.

Administration officials have been telling POLITICO for weeks now that this the most likely compromise because it can probably satisfy liberals—albeit only reluctantly and after many vent frustration and some even threaten to walk away from the bill.

This would clear the way for backers to sneak a limited public option through the Senate by attracting moderate Democrats and then to win President Barack Obama's signature.

Obama told Democratic leadership at the White House Thursday evening that his preference is for the trigger championed by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) – a plan that would allow a public plan to kick in if private insurers don’t expand coverage fast enough, a top administration official told POLITICO. It’s also sign Obama is interested in maintaining a sense of bipartisanship around the health reform plan.

At that meeting, Obama did not sign on to a plan being floated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to include a different variation of the public option in the Senate bill – a plan that would create a national public plan but allow states to “opt-out.” Reid now believes he can get 60 votes to bring a bill with that plan to the floor by breaking an expected GOP filibuster – and then secure the 51 votes needed to pass it.

In other words, if Mike Allen is right, then the developments of the last two weeks have basically amounted to nothing. We're right back to the false choice of a trigger for a public option that will never be activated or no public option at all. Even worse, it seems Obama has decided to side with the Snowe Queen rather than Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, which bodes very ill for a real health care reform plan.

If this is true, then Obamacare is in real trouble. How true it is remains to be seen, it is Politico's Mike Allen, after all, not exactly the best friend of progressives when it comes to painting "exclusive" pictures of how Congress works.

We'll see where this goes. Again, if Allen's right, Obama and Max Baucus are so scared of losing the Snowe Queen's support that they are letting a single Republican solely determine the course of America's health care future for all of us.

The reality remains to be seen. Let's hope it's not close to this.

[UPDATE 12:20 PM] John Aravosis calls bullshit on this story.

I just spoke to my own senior Hill sources, who, let's just say, are seriously in a position to know. And they tell me that the House bill "will have the public option," period. Votes are still being counted, so don't believe Politico when they report breathlessly that the public option is dead. It looks like a public option foe is putting out disinformation.

Hey, but it's Mike Allen. As I said before, he's no friend of progressives. The "exclusive" story smells like a Politico spin job.

On the other hand, Chris Bower at Open Left says that Mike Allen is basically 100% correct as of last night.

I am receiving new information tonight that the House DOES NOT have 218 "solid' yes votes for health care reform with a Medicare +5% public option. Representative John Larson's claim earlier today that the House had the votes appear to have included at least 12, and as many as 15, Representatives who are "lean yes" votes.

Further, I am told that if the leadership does not confirm 218 "solid" yes votes by the end of the 9:30 a.m. Democratic caucus meeting tomorrow morning, they will probably include the negotiated rate public option in the bill that is sent to the floor, not the Medicare +5% public option. At the very latest, we have until 2 p.m. to get the votes.

So we'll see who is right by the end of the day.