The big fight over ObamaCare is far from finished.
So it looks as if the public option has been sent to the death panel—so to speak. Over the weekend President Obama and other White House officials throttled back their demands for a new health-care entitlement program that looked like Medicare for the middle class. Liberals are in a furor and more than a few conservatives are popping champagne corks. But dumping one of the most radical and destructive features of ObamaCare is best viewed as a tactical political retreat, not a surrender.
The Administration had to toss something overboard, considering the rising swell of voter opposition and the fact that many Democrats are getting queasy in the current health-care squall, especially in the Senate. Jettisoning the public option is supposed to quiet the public's main worry about government control of medical decision-making—not to mention neutralizing the insurance industry's main objection. The issue now is whether Mr. Obama's fall-back is merely to pass the public option on the installment plan.
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