" . . . if anyone didn't like it, there would always be the opportunity to join a privately-run plan."

Maybe, but we don't actually know that, do we? If the public option includes employees whose employers have chosen to pay the 8% of payroll tax (as in HR 3200, which may or may not be Obama's "my plan") to fund the "public option" rather than purchase coverage, those people would have to use their own after tax dollars to find a plan, if not in the exchange (where pre-exisitng damages and chronic illnesses will certainly be subject to guaranteed issue and at mandated rates, and where the individuals perhaps have vouchers or credits representing that 8% paid on their behalf) which itself seems to be destined to become the sole "public option," (ignoring the expanded Medicaid eligibility) then the individuals would have to purchase coverage in the remaining individual market, where prices may be sky high and not subject to guaranteed issue (?)

That's one heck of a run-on sentence, I know, and perhaps I missed something fundamental (e.g. in exchanges versus public option versus co-ops) so that it is actually a nonsense question . . . but I just can't figure it out.

(I'm pretty sure, though, that the exchange becomes a (the) publicly funded backstop to provide coverage, starting with $2 billion thrown into a pot by the feds (as in HR 3200), and funded with public dollars as appropriate and required beyond the 8% collected and premiums otherwise paid. Obama said before Congress this woyuld take four years to fully implement, and he would use Sen. McCain's idea of a different public option in the interim.)

Maybe Bobert's right and Obama is going to pull a rabbit out of his hat with a still undisclosed "my plan," but then why would he have said $900 billion over ten years - the same as current HR 3200 estimates?