After spending months putting the phrase “public option” into the national consciousness, House Democrats, according to The Hill, want to drop that term in favor of “Medicare Part E”.

Say hello to “Medicare Part E” — as in, “Medicare for Everyone.”

House Democrats are looking at re-branding the public health insurance option as Medicare, an established government healthcare program that is better known than the public option.

The strategy could benefit Democrats struggling to bridge the gap between liberals in their party, who want the public option, and centrists, who are worried it would drive private insurers out of business.

While much of the public is foggy on what a public option actually is, people understand Medicare. It also would place the new public option within the rubric of a familiar system rather than something new and unknown.

A couple things about this. First of all, this just seems so cynical, to toss out “Medicare Part E” right at the end like this. Wasn’t there a meeting on terminology a little earlier? Four months of “Medicare Part E” makes sense. One week of it before the final vote? Not so much. Second, recent polling shows a public option gaining in support. It’s not a broken-down horse that needs to be swapped out at this point.

And third, as Ron Wyden never tires of pointing out, the public option on offer wouldn’t be available to everyone. In fact, it would be closed to more than 90 percent of all Americans, along with everything else on the exchanges.

Now, if they wanted to do a true Medicare Part E, with automatic enrollment and universal availability, I’m right there. But this rebranding could get slippery the moment you have to explain that Medicare for Everyone isn’t for, well, everyone.