The public option is not dead. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it’s just a matter of time until its passage.

Harry Reid

“We’re going to have a public option,” Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, said at a gathering of liberal activists at Netroots, according to Reason Magazine. “It’s a question of when.”

A government-run health insurance option was key component in the debate over health care reform last year, until Democrats said they didn’t think they could win enough support to include it in the health reform bill passed in March.

The insurance industry fears that if a public option is created, insurance brokers will not be part of the process of selling policy, eliminating a huge portion of the market.

Last week, 128 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bill that would add the public option to the features of the health care reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.