Previewing tonight's joint session address, a senior White House official said this afternoon that while President Obama will reiterate his support for the public option, he'll urge Congress to take a broader view of health care reform.

The official said the "fascination" with the public option is understandable, but Obama "wants to make clear what the place of the public option in this debate is."

"This is not a national debate about whether we have a public option for the tens of millions who are uninsured. It's about how we bring security and stability to hundreds of millions of Americans, most of whom won't ... be participating in this marketplace," the official said. "The public choice is a means to an end. It's not an end in and of itself. So he will make that clear."

In discussing the president's address tonight, the official also took issue with the notion that the administration lost ground in the health care debate in the month of August. "Any downward movement frankly occurred in June and July," the official said, at the height of legislative activity prior to Congress' recess. "I think that was a consequence of the focus being very much on this legislative process, lots of committees doing work, a lot of focus on the trees and not the forest," the official said. "Tonight's the night when he can describe the forest in terms that people can understand, and bring some clarity to this process."