PolitiFact looked at this topic the other day, and this is part of what they have to say: We have to say that the public option was not a very prominent part of Obama's platform. ... We were able to find the proposal pretty quickly after looking in Obama's campaign literature, but he didn't discuss it very much during the campaign. That's true for both the general election and the Democratic primary.   If you look for mentions of the public option in Obama's speeches or comments to voters, you'll find very few. In fact, Obama gave a major address in Iowa on May 29, 2007, outlining his health care plan in considerable detail. There's not one mention of the public option in his speech. ... Obama's new claim is, "I didn't campaign on a public option." We will stipulate that it was not a particularly prominent part of his overall platform for health care. But we find that the public option was part of Obama's campaign materials, and that counts. So we rate his statement Barely True.