What is this shit? Who the fuck cares about Snowe? They only need 50 Democratic votes. If they can't get that for a decent bill with a real public option and no bullshit gimmicks like a "trigger", the party should just dissolve itself- it's totally worthless.

I have no problem with a trigger -- if it's a reasonable one. For example:

The number of uninsured Americans must be reduced by 20 percent every three months, or Americans will be permitted to buy into Medicare at the unsubsidized price. Any American who is denied coverage or has their coverage "recinded", will be able to buy into Medicare immediately.

Insurance corportions will have to offer plans that are cheap enough and generous enough that they are a better deal than Medicare to avoid the trigger. Once a person is enrolled, a person's premiums cannot be increased from the introductory price by more than the rate of inflation, and coverage cannot be changed by the insurance corporation.

I can't believe that Obama and Emmanuel are this inept. They're both highly intelligent and highly accomplished individuals, so it must be that they're not really as interested in a public option as they lead us to believe. I should have voted for Kucinick.

Here's the only point that matters: The less healthcare insurance companies pay for the more money they make. The profit-motive is in direct odds with the purpose of the industry-- to provide healthcare. That's it.

A smart society wouldn't tolerate that.
A moral society wouldn't tolerate that.

But we do; we are neither.

A grace period for the private insurers sounds reasonable.

They will want, say, five years. We counter with five months and then settle on twelve months.

The goal for conservatives is not "to protect private insurers and prevent competition." Not explicitly. Not anymore. The goal is to defeat the Democrats on this project and help their electoral chances next year. They will, to a senator, vote NO on any healthcare bill

The trigger is on the wrong end of the equation.
Why not start WITH public option, and pull the trigger to turn it off if and when the private insurers lower costs, expand access, and improve efficiency enough to match the public option.

...there's no reason to push it off to some arbitrary date in the future, as the system deteriorates in the interim.

Sure there is. And that reason is to allow the insurance companies a few more years to keep lining their pockets with money. The only interests being 'appeased' with this trigger nonsense are the insurance companies, who will now have a bit more time to keep doing what they've been doing.

Instead of the sudden appearance of a dam to block their tide of money, they have a few beavers slowly building a dam over years, giving them time to not change their ways, but to golden-parachute their way out.

As I've said, maybe Obama et al. never really wanted a public option in the first place. Starting with it instead of single-payer (with public option as a fallback) was not a dunderheaded move, but a studied one.

It's not about what is right or what is wrong or what is better or worse for the country:

It's about what can be accomplished politically. Dems have 59 votes, potentially. They'd like to pick up Snowe and Collins. That gives Snowe and Collins power to add their conditions to the bill. They're Republicans. It's important to them to not just throw in with the Dems because they still want to be re-elected.

Why is that so difficult for people on either the left or right to understand?

Yes, there's still reconciliation. From everything that I read about reconciliation, it's not a panacea. The bill could be forced through, but would be picked apart by Republicans who would invoke the Byrd Rule. Since the Byrd Rule could only be waived by a 60 vote majority, guess where the Democrats are left at with reconciliation? Right back where they started.

If a trigger is what gets this done, do it.

Terraformer -

Besides the righteous indignation against insurance execs getting golden parachutes, what do you have to lose in that scenario besides a few years?

If it's as you say, and the insurance companies won't change their ways, we win....the trigger will go into effect.

You're not paying attention, Quinn. The reconciliation train left the station a LONG time ago- there is no way in hell to get to 60 votes with anything that deserves to pass (or possibly could pass the House). This WILL be done, if at all, via reconciliation. That makes pandering to Olympia Snowe nothing but sheer fucking insanity.

Steve wrote:
"Whether a public option is effective now or in the future is irrelevant -- it's not about what works; it's about philosophical objections to public-private competition."

What it REALLY is: Who do the DEMS we elected Represent- WE, the voters
or THEM, the Corporate $$$$$$$$$ ?

I watched the past 8 Bush years. I expected to get "screwed" by the Bushies; I never dreamed Obama and "RAHM" would BLOW this RARE opportunity to produce the PUBLIC OPTION.
Plenty of Sound and Fury achieving ZIP ?

Steve,

How do you figure? 59 votes + Snowe = 60.

I think trigger is meaningful only politically to get Snowe's vote. But I dont know if that is sufficient. The so called Blue dogs(and Lieberman) are against the public option anyway. And if those guys were for Public Option, Snowe's vote is useless as Dems should use Reconciliation to get it passed, needing just 51 votes.

Quinn, step away from the crack pipe. There are not even close to 59 Democratic votes for anything even minimally worthwhile. That's been clear for many weeks to anybody who's been paying any attention whatsoever.

Writing the "trigger" into the bill is a prescription for loophole mania. You can bet an army of lobbyists and lawyers have their fingers all over that keyboard right now. This has kick-the-can-down-the-road written all over it. But, somehow, legislators will pat themselves on the back for doing just that.

There should be a law against putting "reform" into the wording on any bill coming out of D.C. It just dooms any real reform measures.

Steve,

What's with the ad-hominem attacks?

To the point, do we know for sure that Blue Dogs wouldn't sign on with a public option that included a trigger?

I think Republicans just like being dishonest. It's like "authorize me to go to war if certain conditions are met and then I'll make sure those conditions are met so I can do what I wanted to do and you can feel like you had some input."

Olympia "Trigger' Snowe: the future of the Democratic Party.

This morning it is an immense sadness being an american in the 21st century.

Despite the Who (and that shitty Las Vegas teevee show about cops into necrophilia) it keeps happening over and over and over and over...

What's with the ad-hominem attacks?

The meanaing of "ad hominem" is yet another thing of which you appear to be ignorant. Pointing out the FACT that you don't know what you're talking bout is not "ad hominem". Christ, anyone who reads the news at all would be aware that even the spineless Democratic leadership has been talking about the necessity of using reconciliation for quite some time now.

Telling someone that they smoke crack is not an ad hominem attack, Steve?

Tell you what: read up on reconciliation and the Byrd rule of which YOU appear ignorant.

Tell you what: read up on reconciliation and the Byrd rule of which YOU appear ignorant.

I'm quite conversant with them. The irony is that they may actually REQUIRE a strong public option because- though the MSM won't tell anybody this- it REDUCES the cost.

The goal for conservatives is to protect private insurers and prevent competition.

Actually, I think it's beyond that.

It's "Just Say No," for some atavistic reason.

To which I reply. OK, let's tear down the whole thing. Not just the welfare parts. Tear down the military. And intellectual property. And other property. And - no - we aren't going to enforce contracts either. Don't bother to retreat into your closed communities because the money you plan to pay your private security forces with won't be any good.

Wave your teabags at that.

Triggers were proposed...and rejected...for the Bush Tax Cuts.

Triggers bad for rich people.
Triggers good for everyone else.

I can't believe that Obama and Emmanuel are this inept. -Chris

You're right; they aren't inept. They are committed to a bullet point for the next election cycle. What they are working on will amount to nothing more than a giveaway to private insurance companies, but it will give Obama a nice photo op! It's what I've thought since the beginning of this whole discussion, but I'm still left with that hollow, empty disappointed feeling.

I'm still hoping he wears a flight suit when he signs the bill.

Can someone please direct me to where I request refunds from OFA?

Quinn, maybe people would 'understand' if you didn't completely misrepresent what is and is not politically possible.

The Byrd rule is irrelevant. The Senate can wave it whenever 51 Senators or 50+ The VP decide they want to. The fact of the matter is, the rules of the Senate say that reconciliation is for whatever the Senate says it's for.

People who say otherwise are just making rules up to prevent a public option from being passed. People like Matt Y and Quinn here are talking about about what they wish the rule was, not about what it is in reality. In reality, no matter what formal guidelines have been established, every last one of them can be overruled.

"Reform, but not now." It used to be practically the motto of the Republican Party (before it went all fundamentally crazy). Doesn't make any more sense now than it ever did as a political philosophy. If 35 years of getting squeezed by HMOs isn't enough evidence that they won't do what's necessary, then how much longer do we have to wait before calling it a mess?

A basic assumption of course is that when reformers try again later, the GOP can block them another time. With any "trigger", that should kick in just about the time that the Republicans take back the White House. Good luck getting them to revisit a public option that Democrats were too cowardly to push through on their own.

I think the justification for a trigger might be a financial one right now as the deficit and debt are so high. I think it might be cheaper to do it this way first because it has to be deficit neutral and Obama wants it below $lT. I think even the Dems won't be able to agree and sadly nothing will pass. A lot of people really need it though.

cat, you're misinformed- not your fault since the media have gone out of their way to misinform people about this. A robust public option actually REDUCES costs. (Makes sense when you think about it, because the alternative, essentially subsidizing for-profit insurers, is obviously inefficient.) http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/going-it-alone-on-health-care-dems-face-tug-of-war-over-public-option.php

Snowe and Lieberman are republicans; kick 'em under the bus and drive on.

I think the justification for a trigger might be a financial one right now as the deficit and debt are so high.

Well, there are a quadrillion dollars worth of derivatives out there which could implode at any time.

Which means that Bill Gates is basically just a guppy floating in the ocean; while the federal government is just a minnow.

When we debate healthcare, Afghanistan, rodent control in the national parks, or any other such issue, we basically are putting the derivative thing out of our minds. Which is what we have to do.

Quinn: Terraformer: Besides the righteous indignation against insurance execs getting golden parachutes, what do you have to lose in that scenario besides a few years?

Personally, I have insurance through my company. It's what others would lose in 'a few years'--their homes, their livelihoods, and/or their savings due to an inability to pay for health care. Being an empathetic progressive does that, makes me think of other people, and not just myself. Thus, I'm not okay with waiting for the trigger.

As has been said, we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place if insurance companies weren't acting like thieves for the past several decades. Maybe you don't have a problem with it, Quinn, but seeing what is and has been happening to people who either thought they were covered or who aren't covered at all due to insurance company greed makes me all righteously indignant.

As lou (@ 9:11) observed, define "trigger". The "trigger" can't stand against the cabal of lawyers who discover the loophole(s) to return it to "safety" mode. But even if this "trigger" fires, define exactly what happens next. The start of a quest for a definition of "public option"? All the opponents suddenly become serious about cooperating because they "lost"? You have got to be fucking kidding yourself.

Submit an amendment to Medicare that removes the age requirement NOW. Let the Rethugs try to shred Medicare without scaring the elderly. They must turn to arguments of cost. If the Donkeys had a lick of sense, they would be pushing their plan to pay for it NOW. But I suppose they are about as prepared for that battle as they were for the current one.

Marc Ambinder reported that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel "has been pushing the idea of a 'trigger' internally, and he and Snowe regularly trade legislative and political intelligence."

Why am I unsurprised that Rahm Emmanuel, the kind of scummy little Chicago schmuck in a shiny suit who would sell his own mother to the devil if there was a penny's profit in it for him, the kind of putz who is the perfect apotheosis of the term "Chicago politician" has been out there conspiring with the enemy to do in real reform? How else is he going to get all the corporations to give him all the money he wants in 2012 for the second coronation of the Good Emperor Claudius?

You gotta wonder about the mind that would choose Lieberman over a loyal Democrat back in 2006, and who would hire Emmanuel to sell everything down the river. Emmanuel's not getting a penny from my fund-raising come 2012, certainly not the $350,000 I raised last time, when I was confusing form with substance.

I like the idea of the "trigger" option because it makes the bill even that much more incomprehensible to the uncomprehending. And the word "trigger" itself is great -- we are no longer going to pull the plug on granny; we're going to shoot her with nary a chance for end-of-life counseling.

And forget the logic Steve works out; it makes too much sense.

The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com

soullite -

If I'm misrepresenting, please back it up with a cite from a source that says differently about the Byrd Rule. From what I've read, it says 3/5 (60 vote) majority is needed to override it:

http://budget.house.gov/crs-reports/RL30862.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(U.S._Congress)

Terraformer -

Fair enough :)

& we could save more money by emptying all the prisons, then we could watch the ex-cons for 7 years. If they recidivate, then after 7 years we can go back to using prisons as a public policy option.

I went to a Town Hall meeting with Chis Murphy today. From what I heard Americans will be ( to coin a phrase frequently expressed by politicians) "thrown under the bus "as the insurance companies will continue to reign with huge profits and continue to get government subsidies under another name. Obama is failing Americans by not keeping to principles promised in the campaign, but to politics as usual for corporations , insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies.

Snowe pushes "triggers" for Bush's tax cuts and the Republicans tell her to pound sand. She proposes triggers on Healthcare reform and the democrats eat it up.

The insurance companies will lie and juggle books to make things look nice and buy time until the fruitcakes running the Republican Party gain strength and can stop old "Trigger" from taking place.

Democratic leaders have to be the most spineless, naive suckers on the planet, starting with this deceptive fraud, Obama.

LOU: Writing the "trigger" into the bill is a prescription for loophole mania.

Well said.

"Loopholemania" is how triggers should be defined, and defined NOW!!

I've already called or emailed our Texas Democratic Party, Lloyd Doggett, the White House and the DNC to tell them that they should support the Public Option (no triggers). If they don't I'm going to sit out the next 2 elections and urge every liberal and progressive to do the same.

First a couple of statistics (approximations):

GDP ==> $12Trillion/year

Health care % ==> 15%+ ==> $1.8Trillion/year

Nation pays 5% of GDP more than others ==> $.6T/year !!

300M/$600B ==> $2000/person in their pocket EVERY YEAR

The Right complains about "big government" and too much "taxes", but here is the real big tax. Here is corporate America taking thousands every single year that people get nothing for. Nothing.

If people want a tax break they should also want health care reform. It will put money in your pocket. How much is uncertain, but it's real money.

We need this to get our economic house in order. There has been far too much of GDP going to the health care industry and the financial industry and to corporate executives in general. It's ruining everybody else. And in the health care field it's getting worse every year.

Change now!

It's inevitable that the President would be down in the polls at this point in his term. Does anyone remember George Bush's approval ratings on 9/10/01? They were in the low 50s with high 30s disapprooving. So it's no surprise that President Obama's approval ratings couldn't stay in the nose bleed stratosphere forever.

That said, Obama is still an inspirational figure to many - not the least of whom the black community. The drop out rate among blacks - particularly black males - is unacceptably high. If the President can help and serve as a role model - why not?

Steve - I think the obvious answer to your question is that centrist Democrats (e.g., Ben Nelson) are not rational thinkers. Their opposition to a public option is not based on sound policy logic, it's based on political atmospherics. If a trigger improves the political atmospherics, then it could be enough to get them onboard.

It's not about conservative Republicans. We don't need their votes anyway.

YEs, just like the Assault weapons ban. After we worked so hard to keep military style weapons out of random hands, he Republicans got a sunset provision in it, so as soon as they were in charge, sunset came; now Bin Laden [or Mexican drug lords] can walk up to any gun show and walk away with a cart-load ful of guns that can kill at a 1 mile range.
SO, now the "trigger"--- once Republicans are back in power, they simply will change the terms so that it will never trigger.
I thought we voted overwhelmingly for a Democrat for President.
Olympia Snowe represents 1.3 million people--- about the same number of people who live in the Bronx.

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