In her weekly press conference, Speaker Nancy Pelosi once again argued for the need for a government health insurance option.

"The need for a public option is very clear, and, as I have said, our House bill will have a public option," she said. With a mandate included and news that private insurance rates will increase next year, "the idea that we would have health insurance reform without a public option becomes less likely."

The Senate is currently blending the two bills passed out of the Finance and HELP committees, and Pelosi said the House will finish merging its three bills in the next week. Should the blended bills pass the House and Senate, they would be sent to a joint conference, followed by each chamber voting on one combined bill.

Pelosi demurred when asked if Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the lone Republican on the Finance Committee to support the Baucus plan, has more influence than the Speaker in the health care debate. Snowe has said that the kind of robust public option Pelosi prefers is one she could not support, and Senate Democrats and the White House want her support in order to make it a bipartisan bill.

"It is not about who has what kind of influence. It is the question of what is the best approach for America's middle class when it comes to affordability, and a public option, in our view, is what takes down cost," Pelosi said. "The robust public option that is being considered in the House saves $110 billion. How can you ignore that: $110 billion?"

Pelosi cited two polls released this week by CBS and Marist -- each found more than 60 percent of Americans approve of the public option. That statistic may come in handy not only in debate with Republicans, but in negotations with centrist Democrats in both chambers.

"We are also saying if you are going to mandate that people must buy insurance, why would you throw them into the lion's den of the insurance industry without some leverage with a public option?" said Pelosi.