With the Public Option on Life Support, Will Co-Op Compromise Win Bipartisan Support?

ABC News' Kristina Wong reports: President Obama's speech Wednesday night to the joint session of Congress – and Rep. Joe Wilson's 'You lie!' outburst during the speech – galvanized Democrats' resolve to achieve health care reform this year, and helped recapture momentum for the President after a summer of beleaguered debate.

Today, against a backdrop of tens of thousands of Americans marching on Washington this weekend to oppose health care reform, White House officials dismissed the president's critics, reinforced his message while offering few specifics, and continued to back away from insistence on the public option.

Axelrod: Capitol Demonstrators are 'Wrong'

White House senior adviser David Axelrod had strong words for Americans who demonstrated at the Capitol this past weekend to oppose the president's health care reform plans.

"My message to them is, they're wrong," Axelrod said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"I don't believe that some of the angriest, most strident voices we saw during the summer were representative of the thousands of town hall meetings that went on around the country that came off peacefully, that were constructive, people voicing their points of view," Axelrod said.

Nevertheless, Axelrod and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs addressed a major concern Americans are anxious about – the cost of health care reform. The president declared during his speech, "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future. No ifs, ands, or buts."

"He is absolutely committed that he will – he will not sign a bill unless he can say to the American people honestly that this bill will not add to our deficit," Axelrod said.

However, the White House offered few specifics.

"The president outlined a plan to Congress on Wednesday that first cuts waste and inefficiency from Medicare and Medicaid dollars that are being spent on health care, but aren't making us safer or healthier, and the revenue increase that the president has proposed is actually on insurance companies that offer gold-plated health care plans," Gibbs said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Gibbs: Public Option is 'Not All of Health Care

On the public option, Axelrod and Gibbs continued to downplay its role in health care reform.

"He continues to believe it's a good idea. He continues to advocate it. and I'm not willing to accept that it's not going to be in the final package. But what he also said and what we've all said is that this is not the whole of health insurance reform," Axelrod said.

Gibbs said the president "prefers" the public option.

"However, he said what's most important is choice and competition," Gibbs said. "And for our Democratic friends, the public option is a means to an end, but it is not all of health care."

Maine Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, who is working on bridging the gap between Dem and GOP lawmakers in the Senate, said it was "unfortunate" President Obama was unwilling to take the public option off the table.

"It leaves open a legislative possibility that creates uncertainty in this process. And I think it could give real momentum to building a consensus on other issues," Snowe said on CNN.

Snowe said the bill from a bipartisan group of senators in the Senate Finance Committee will include a co-op as an alternative to a public option – a group of non-profit insurers that would be set up by the government, but controlled by its enrolled members.

"We'll be using the co-op as an option at this point, as the means for injecting competition into the process," Snowe said.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., who charged earlier that the president was simply paying lip service to bipartisan support for health care reform, acknowledged the president put forth "good ideas" in his speech, but said he would like to see an actual bill reflecting those ideas. 

Howard Dean: Americans Won't Care if Health Care Bill Rammed Through

"It was a good speech. But he said – he described what he called his plan, and so far we have not seen his plan. There's a difference between campaigning, giving a good speech, and actually governing," Cornyn said on CNN. "And I think we're seeing that disconnect here. The president needs to work with us to make hard decisions in order to solve the problem, not just give a speech."

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrinch echoed that sentiment.

"I can go through the president's speech and find a lot of things that I like. Then I go to the House Democratic bill and I don't find a single one of those things reflected in the legislation," Gingrich said on CNN.

Former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean suggested invoking the reconciliation process in the Senate, where only 51 votes would be needed.

"Republicans and Democrats both rammed things through. At the end of the day, the American people want a bill. They're not going to care if it's reconciliation or if it's ramming it through. What they want is a decent bill that makes sense to them," Dean said. 

With the president's upcoming health care rally this Thursday, and the bipartisan "Gang of Six" senators expected to unveil a bill  without the controversial public option, this coming week could be pivotal as to whether the president and Democrats can achieve bipartisan health care reform this year, without "ramming it through."