I think it's a bluff too, or the daily trial balloon. It's said that there are 100 members of the House who will NOT vote for a plan without a public option but also that the Senate will NOT pass with a public option. How do you cut that baby in half?
With moderates opposing this bill almost 2 to 1, it makes absolutely no political sense to ramrod this through. It would be easy enough to take an incremental approach and do a couple of small things. This would allow Democrats and Obama to claim a victory of sorts.
Allow me to voice the contrarian opinion. As others have pointed out, Single-Payer Health Care is the holy grail for the liberals. Obama is the manifestation of everything they've been working for since FDR left office. You heard many a lib say shortly after Zero was elected, "This is a chance to complete the New Deal". "Universal Health Care" is the completion of the so-called New Deal.
I actually think that there's a reasonable chance that they'll ram this through using reconciliation. I hope that I'm wrong, and that other who have pointed out that there might be more than a few Dem Senators who won't want to blow up the Senate just for this. But, I think that this is their last, best chance and they're not going to walk away from it precisely because they recognize that even if they're committing political suicide, there will be no undoing the damage they've done.
FDR is gone, but Social Security is still here. Johnson is gone, but Medicaid is still here. Obama will be gone, but the the disaster that will be Single Payer would endure - and they know it.