Khisanth Magus posted:

Lets have a quick history lesson!

It is 2009. Obama has just been sworn in during one of the biggest economic recessions this country has ever seen, the worse since the great depression. The democrats have control of the house, but they only have exactly 60 seats in the senate, the exact amount needed to achieve the supermajority required to get past a GOP filibuster. There were 2 problems: Several of the members of congress were conservative "blue dogs" who wouldn't vote for any truly progressive policies(such as single payer!). The second problem was that 2 democratic senators were in the process of dying, including Ted Kennedy, a long time proponent of healthcare reform. The democrats had very little time in which to pass anything, and in addition to healthcare reform they also needed to pass the actually much more important bills that would help the economy start to recover. In the end the number of sitting days during 2009 that the democrats could override a filibuster could be counted on both hands with fingers to spare. Then in August 2009, a mere 7-8 months after Obama was sworn into office, Ted Kennedy passed away, and the GOP governor of Massachusetts appointed a republican as his replacement, ending the Democratic supermajority and ensuring gridlock for the rest of Obama's term.

Obama didn't have the time to dick around with trying to convince the blue dogs to support a bill that included single payer or a public option. You say that Obama pulled the public option off in July. I'd say that is pretty drat good timing, because a month later Ted Kennedy died and nothing could have been passed.