Paul Krugman in the NYT attempts to inoculate President Obama from a climbing unemployment rate and a failing economy by blaming it on a too small stimulus that President Obama agreed to, and only got three Republican votes.

Krugman then uses that argument to state:

Which brings us back to health care. It would be a crushing blow to progressive hopes if Mr. Obama doesn’t succeed in getting some form of universal care through Congress. But even so, reform isn’t worth having if you can only get it on terms so compromised that it’s doomed to fail.

Three key progressive Democratic Party caucuses in the U.S. House drew their own line in the sand on a public plan, demanding it be in any health reform bill. And given Speaker Pelosi’s statement that she does not have the votes to pass a health care reform bill without a public plan option, before these caucuses made their statement,

Krugman’s view that “reform isn’t worth having” without a public plan may foreshadow actual events: there may be no reform plan at all.