Tom Daschle: What IS his position on the public option?

I don't know where that came from. We've been pushing back on that all day. I didn't say that. I have said emphatically I support a public plan. A Medicare-for-all public plan. Any federal plan. For all the reasons that have been made for years. It's important for cost, for choice, for competition, for popularity. I strongly support it.

What I did say is that I'm willing to compromise on most things to bring the package across the line. The plan we agreed to yesterday was that states could offer public plans with a federal fall back. That's not my first, second, or third choice. But given the concessions my colleagues made on universal coverage and an employer mandate and everything else, that's the essence of compromise.

-from Ezra Klein's interview today with Daschle.

Howie P.S.: I wish Tom was thinking of ways to move the numbers inside the Beltway in the direction of the numbers outside the Beltway.