by Sam Stein and Ryan Grim of HuffPost

President Barack Obama is activelydiscouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a publicinsurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health carereform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama hasindicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by theinsurance industry, which would see a public plan "triggered" intoeffect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certainbenchmarks.

The administration retreat runscounter to the letter and the spirit of Obama's presidential campaign.The man who ran on the "Audacity of Hope" has now taken a moreconservative stand than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.),leaving progressives with a mix of confusion and outrage. Democraticleaders on Capitol Hill have battled conservatives in their own partyin an effort to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Nowtantalizingly close, they are calling for Obama to step up.

"The leadership understands thatpushing for a public option is a somewhat risky strategy, but we may bewithin striking distance. A signal from the president could be enoughto put us over the top," said one Senate Democratic leadership aide.Such pleading is exceedingly rare on Capitol Hill and comes only afterSenate leaders exhausted every effort to encourage Obama to engage.

"Everybody knows we're close enoughthat these guys could be rolled. They just don't want to do it becauseit makes the politics harder," said a senior Democratic source, sayingthat Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs andconservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn't seen as bipartisan."These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them."

But with fundamental reform of thehealth care system in plain sight for the first time in half a century,the president appears to be siding with those who see the Senate andits entrenched culture as too resistant to change. Administrationofficials say that Obama's preference for the trigger, which is backedby Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, is founded in a fear thatReid's public option couldn't get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOPfilibuster. More specifically, aides fear that a handful ofconservative Democrats will not support a bill unless it has at leastone Republican member's support.

The president's retreat leaves Reidas the champion of progressive reform -- an irony that is not lost onthose who have long derided the Majority Leader as too cautious.

"Who knew that when it came down tocrunch time, Harry Reid would be the one who stepped up to the plateand Barack Obama would shy away from the fight," emailed oneprogressive strategist.

On Thursday evening, after taking thetemperature of his caucus, Reid told Obama at a White House meetingthat he was pushing a national public option with an opt-out provision.Obama, several sources briefed on the exchange, reacted coolly.

“He certainly didn’t embrace it andhe seemed to indicate a preference for continuing to work on a strategythat involved Senator Snowe and a trigger,” said on aide briefed on themeeting. Several other sources, along with independent media reports, confirmed the exchange.

Outside Congress, anger trumpedconfusion. On Saturday, the activist group Progressive Change CampaignCommittee - which just days earlier had targeted Reid in a separatecampaign - took out a new televisionadvertisement in Maine accompanied by an "emergency petition." Titled,"Time to Fight," the spot featured a former Obama campaign volunteerpleading with the president not to abandon the public plan.

"If this once-in-a-generationopportunity to pass a public option goes down the drain after we werejust a couple votes away in each house of Congress, everyone willremember exactly who was and was not willing to fight when it counted,"said the group's co-founder, Adam Green, when asked why he aired thead. "Our grassroots pressure is an attempt to get President Obama tolive up to the mandate for sweeping change that was given to him in the2008 election."

MoveOn.org rallied its base onFriday. "The President has said many, many times that a public optionis the best way to keep insurance companies honest and lowerskyrocketing health care costs. Senate Democrats are ready to fight fora public option--if the White House gives up now, it would be a tragicmistake," said an e-mail to the group's membership.

White House aides responded to thepressure not by embracing Reid's more aggressive stance, but by denyingreports that he was discouraging the opt-out proposal.

"The report is false. The White House continues to work with the Senate on the merging of the two bills," said Dan Pfeiffer,a top White House aide whose portfolio includes health care. "We aremaking good progress toward enacting comprehensive health reform."

But the push-back, say sources withdirect knowledge of deliberations between leadership and theadministration, does not square with Obama's private indications toSenate leaders. The sources say that the president has left littledoubt about his apprehension with an opt-out approach.

It is not philosophical, one WhiteHouse aide explained, but is a matter of political practicality. If thevotes were there to pass a robust public option through the Senate, thepresident would be leading the charge, the aide said. But after sixmonths of concern that it would be filibustered, the bet among Obama'saides is that Reid is now simply being too optimistic in his whipcount. The trigger proposal, said Democratic aides, has long beenassociated with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

"He's been so convinced by hispolitical people from the beginning that we can't get a bill with apublic option, he's internalized it. Even though it's now becomeobvious we can get a bill without selling out the public option, he'sstill on that path," said a top Democratic source. The White House, hesaid, continues to assure progressives it'll improve the bill inconference negotiations between the Senate and House, but advocates areunconvinced.

"If we're this close in the Senateand they're not helping us, I have a feeling they could screw us in theconference," said one.

Advocates of a public option considera "trigger" the equivalent of no public option at all. A trigger wouldimplement a public option only if insurance companies failed to meetcertain benchmarks over time and it would only be implemented in theregions of the country where those benchmarks weren't met. The Medicareprescription drug proposal passed in 2003 includes a "trigger," but thepublic provision has never been activated despite soaring drug costs.The industry can help craft the trigger language and can game its statsto prevent it from becoming reality.

"The current state of our healthsystem should be trigger enough for anyone who's paying attention,"said a congressional aide in the middle of the health care battle. "TheAmerican people pulled the 'trigger' in November."

The intellectual father of the publicoption, Yale Professor Jacob Hacker, told HuffPost that the triggerproposal is a betrayal.

"The trigger is an inside-the-beltwaysleight of hand that would protect private insurers from the realcompetition that a strong public health insurance option would create,"he said in an e-mail. "It is unworkable in the current Senate bills,unwise as public policy, and unwanted by the substantial majority ofAmericans who say they want a straight-up public option."