Chris Bowers writes that the battle for the public option was fairly successful, despite the compromise:
--4 million more people covered by Medicaid, which is a public option, than the July version of the House bill
--1-2 million covered by a Medicare buy-in, which is also a public option, and which was entirely absent in the July version of the House bill
--An increase, from 85% in the July House bill to 90% now, in the percentage of money companies receive on health insurance premiums that must be spent on health care.
These are all concessions directly made to progressives in return for dropping a Medicare +5% public option that would have covered 10 million people. Not bad.
And this doesn't even count future expansions. I don't know what to make of the compromises yet, but I don't think they can be interpreted as a loss. In fact, I think the Medicare buy-in will have a better chance of expanding into something like Medicare For All than the opt-out public option would've.