The recent announcement by the White House that they are dropping/will accept no public option in their health reform bill has cause the already comatose Intrade market prediction of passage of a federal government run health insurance plan (public option) to completely tank, going from 35% chance of passage to a 14% chance of passage.

This is the single best predictor of the future known to exist — people making bets with real money about the outcome of the future.

Check out the straight down line on this graph. The exact question Intrade is asking is:

Will a federal government run health insurance plan (a public option) be approved in the US?
A federal government run health insurance plan to be approved before midnight ET 31 Dec 2009