Take an incremental approach operationally, and divide and conquer politically. Make a new public health insurance plan available only to small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. 

Morally, this is not exactly optimal. But politically, it would reduce a lot of the fears of right-leaning Democrats and the handful of moderate Republicans in Congress. It limits the public plan in size, and insulates it from being painted as a new welfare program. It can be expanded later to groups who should have had access to it from the start. Small businesses and their employees are suffering from huge health insurance bills and access problems, and helping with that is good on the merits and is politically as safe as it gets for moderates in both parties. If there needs to be some realpolitik choices made, starting with small businesses is better than no public plan at all.

I'm fascinated these days with how a few intelligent, successful people I know on the right have walled themselves off from any inconvenient facts. They are not news junkies, and some have voted Democratic in the past, but listen to just enough right wing talk radio and Fox to have a rebuttal to most of what I come up with, illogical and/or poorly informed as their rebuttal might be.  If I make the effort to go into detail on something and try to disprove their alleged facts, they will say they don't have time to read it, or will trivialize it as just one fact that must have a counter point on their side, or that because my source is MSM, that it's liberal and therefore does not count. Any of these assertions provide  license for them to believe my fact has been neutralized.

Does anyone have any stories on how they have actually managed to convince even a casual talk-radio listener of a fact that does not fit the spin they are listening to?  Ever gotten them to admit the people they listen to just might be making up a lot of what they say?  I'd love to hear how that can be done.  The right-wing media really works on some people.