However, this is not the only interpretation — and it may not be the correct one. One problem is that both the poll and the article assume that the public assumes that the public option is the default condition of the health care reform plan. But as anyone who is following the health care debate knows, this is hardly a safe assumption. Some versions of the “proposed changes to the health care system being developed by Congress and the Obama administration” — like the one which was passed by the House tri-committee — include a public option. Other versions — like the draft prepared by Max Baucus’s Senate Finance Committee — do not. And the President himself is on the fence. As a matter of semantics at the very least, it is not really proper to state that “If [the public option] were removed, opposition to the overall package drops by six percentage points,” because it is not clear that the public option is in the package in the first place.