Public option was not intended as major focus for Obama administration

President Obama's advisers have acknowledged that they were unprepared for the intraparty rift that occurred over the fate of a proposed public health insurance program. Administration officials insisted that they have not shied away from their support for a public option to compete with private insurance companies, an idea they said Obama still prefers to see in a final bill. But the White House finds itself mired in a Democratic Party feud over an issue it never intended to spotlight, according to the Washington Post.