Reply #15: An interesting comment from the full transcript at MSNBC

[madfloridian]

"MR. GREGORY: ...White House officials I've spoken to have been very clear, saying that the left in the Democratic Party has overshot the runway here, overstating the importance of a public option. Did the president put it away?

DR. DEAN: I don't think so at all. I'm, I'm with Dick on this. Look, the president said yesterday that if you can find another way around it to control the insurance companies' costs, that would be fine. There's another way. There's two countries in Europe that have universal health care without--and it's entirely run by insurance companies. But they treat the insurance companies like regulated utilities. If the insurance companies would prefer to be treated like regulated utilities, we'd drop the public option in a heartbeat."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32812029/ns/meet_the_press/page/2/