“This is just for the Senate,” a House leadership official said about the administration’s concession on a public option. “There is no way it passes the House the first time around without a public option.

“The liberals (around 100+) won’t allow it. It if comes back from conference committee without public option and there is the right pitch that it is this or nothing, then it may pass the House.”

Leaders now say the House will put off a vote on health reform until the end of September — to provide a cooling-off period from the raucous town meetings and to give strategists a better sense of where the Senate is headed.