Pelosi Affirms Commitment to Government-Run Insurance Plan

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday affirmed her commitment to including a government-run insurance plan in health care reform, just hours after she spoke approvingly of an alternative to the so-called public option.

"Any real change requires the inclusion of a strong public option. ... A bill without a strong public option will not pass the House," the California Democrat said in a statement. "Eliminating the public option would be a major victory for the insurance companies who have rationed care, increased premiums and denied coverage."

The written statement came after she seemed to slightly back off the public option for the first time in the white-hot debate over health care reform.

Until now, Pelosi has consistently described the public option, backed aggressively by more than 100 liberal House Democrats, as a key ingredient to passage of any House health reform package. But on Thursday she acknowledged talks to substitute a "trigger" mechanism that would hold the public option in abeyance for several years so Congress could evaluate the performance of the insurance industry and its ability or willingness to expand coverage or lower premiums.

"That is true," Pelos said of stepped-up talks on a trigger mechanism as a replacement for the public option. "But I don't know what particulars are of the trigger. Here we have a situation where in the Kennedy bill in Senate, there is a public option -- it's not as strong as the public option in the House bill. If they want no public option, but a trigger, you can be sure that the trigger will bring on a very robust public option. So, if I were advising insurance companies, I'd tell them take this bill the way it is now."

The Senate bill Pelosi referred to was passed out of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that the late Sen. Edward Kennedy chaired. It has not been formally named after Kennedy, but many Democrats, in honoring Kennedy's pursuit of health care reform, have come to call the bill by his name. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has called for Congress to name the final health care bill after Kennedy to memorialize his contribution to health care legislation throughout his nearly 47-year Senate career.

Briefed on Pelosi's remarks, one White House aide involved in health care strategy said: "That sounds like a start. It sounds as if there are a lot of different options when it comes to a trigger."

The White House is eager for House Democrats to move away from the public option to give President Obama maximum negotiating room and to take one of the most contentious issues of the health care debate off the table.

Pelosi's comments, while still keeping the public option very much on the table, for the first time offered a nod from Democratic leadership that a trigger is an acceptable alternative.

Her statement later in the day left a little wiggle room, but made clear her support for the public option above all else.

"If someone has a better idea for promoting competition and reducing health care costs, they should put it on the table. But for the past month, opponents of health insurance reform have demonstrated that they are afraid of the facts. They have only offered distortions, distractions and misrepresentations to try to kill this historic legislation," she said.

Pelosi also said Democrats are ready for a fight on behalf of health care and haven't been frightened by intense public reaction and skepticism evident in health care town halls across the country.

"The best preparation for combat is combat," Pelosi said. "Members have been engaged in the trenches on this issue and when they come back to Washington they're ready for the fight for us to pass this. The American people need it and they will get it, insurance reform. The other side showed the poverty of their ideas, they had nothing really to say except to shout down people from hearing the facts."

FOX News' Major Garrett contributed to this report.