In any case today all signs point to the public plan being in real jeopardy:

White House Open to Deal on Public Health Plan

WASHINGTON -- It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Monday.

"The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest," he said in an interview. "The goal is non-negotiable; the path is" negotiable.

His comments came as the Senate Finance Committee pushed for a bipartisan deal. To help pay for the package, the committee planned to announce an agreement Wednesday with hospitals and the White House for $155 billion over a decade in reductions to Medicare and charity-care payments for hospitals, according to a person familiar with the agreement. That will help pay for the legislation, expected to cost at least $1 trillion over 10 years.

One of the most contentious issues is whether to create a public health-insurance plan to compete with private companies.

Mr. Emanuel said one of several ways to meet President Barack Obama's goals is a mechanism under which a public plan is introduced only if the marketplace fails to provide sufficient competition on its own. He noted that congressional Republicans crafted a similar trigger mechanism when they created a prescription-drug benefit for Medicare in 2003. In that case, private competition has been judged sufficient and the public option has never gone into effect.

Mr. Obama has pushed hard for a vigorous public option. But he has also said he won't draw a "line in the sand" over this point.

The president and his aides already have signaled a willingness to consider an alternative to a public plan under which a network of nonprofit cooperatives would compete with for-profit insurance companies. That is the leading idea in the Senate Finance Committee.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, meanwhile, has put forward its own version of a government-run plan, closer to what most liberals and the White House favor.

On Monday, Mr. Emanuel said the trigger mechanism would also accomplish the White House's goals. Under this scenario, a public plan would kick in under certain circumstances when competition was judged to be lacking. Exactly what circumstances would trigger the option would have to be worked out.

Some Democrats pushing for a vigorous public plan say the trigger idea isn't good enough. Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) said in an interview, "If it's not there on day one, those of us who support a public option have a real problem with it."

In the face of such mixed signals and vacillations from the White House, TPM profiles the man Sen. Max Baucus who is in charge of this health care sell-out, sorry, legislation:

Do Baucus' Ties To Health Care Industry Compromise His Reform Efforts?

Take a quick glance at the website Open Secrets and you can find over a half dozen insurance and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists who were once Baucus staffers.

To name just a few:

       * Roger Blauwet, Baucus' tax counsel, who now lobbies for Merck, Wyeth, and other pharmaceutical interests

       * Jeff Forbes, Baucus' former chief of staff, who represents the interests of several pharmaceutical companies

       * Scott Olsen, a one-time Baucus policy adviser, has been a lobbyist for Amgen since 2004.

       * Melissa Wier, Baucus' former chief trade counsel, who lobbies for Assurant and Ace Limited insurance companies

One particularly noteworthy Baucus alum--a powerful former Baucus chief of staff named David Castagnetti--is now a lobbyists for America's Health Insurance Plans--the health insurance industry's enormous and powerful professional association.

None of this will come as a shock to students of politics in Washington, or to Baucus' many critics on the left, who've long criticized him for being too close to moneyed interests.

And then from Greg Sargent's blog we have this (h/t Josh Orton):

President Obama may have issued a private demand that groups allied with the White House stop hammering moderate Democratic Senators with health care ads, but those groups have no intention to listen to him.

In fact, not only do the groups plan to continue their ads, spokespeople for the groups tell me, but one is actually increasing its buy.

Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that Obama had privately told Congressional Dems he's concerned about TV and online campaigns hitting moderate Democrats for not getting fully behind the public health care option. "We shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," Obama reportedly said.

The response from the groups: That's nice, but we ain't stopping.

A spokesperson for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, one of the groups Obama reportedly complained about, confirms to me that the group is upping its buy with a new round of ads attacking moderate Dem Senators like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu this coming week. "If congressional staffers are complaining to the White House, that shows they are nervous and what we're doing is working," PCCC's Stephanie Taylor says. "So we should just keep doing what we're doing."

So as of right now while millions go uninsured the financially interests in Washington are ready to win yet again. What do you do? You can sign up HERE (STAND WITH DR. DEAN) and HERE (MOVEON.ORG). Donate to these causes, keep the pressure on the senators, this is our government after all.