The Wonk Room at Think Progress wrote Daschle: Public Option ‘Taken Off The Table’ In July Due To ‘Understanding People Had With Hospitals’ "In his book, Daschle reveals that after the Senate Finance Committee and the White House convinced hospitals to to accept $155 billion in payment reductions over ten years on July 8, the hospitals and Democrats operated under two ‘working assumptions.’ ‘One was that the Senate would aim for health coverage of at least 94 percent of Americans,’ Daschle writes. ‘The other was that it would contain no public health plan,’ which would have reimbursed hospitals at a lower rate than private insurers."
But then when TPM asked Daschle about it, he changed his mind. "In describing some of the challenges to passage of the public option in the health reform bill, I did not mean to suggest in any way that the President was not committed to it," Daschle emails. "The President fought for the public option just as he did for affordable health care for all Americans. The public option was dropped only when it was no longer viable in Congress, not as a result of any deal cut by the White House. While I was disappointed that the public option was not included in the final legislation, the Affordable Care Act remains a tremendous achievement for the President and the nation."
And of course Glenn Greenwald wrote about it at the time and has comments about this.
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