Trigger Unhappy

by digby

So the rumor is that President Obama is pressuring Harry Reid to put Rahm's trigger into the Senate health care bill but that Reid is resisting. True story or kabuki dance? Who knows? The White House denies the specifics, but there's reason, based on past behavior, that they are so enamored of having Olympia Snowe on board so they have accepted triggers and expect Reid to back their "deal."

But triggers are unacceptable, for reasons that have been spelled out for months. Health care reform is going to be a tough enough sell to those who are mandated to buy insurance as it is. What do they think is going to happen if they are forced to buy insurance that is guaranteed to rise in price until some trigger is hit that will be so outrageous that it requires the creation of a public plan (that will then take even more time to become operational?) It's an invitation to an epic backlash. It's already going to be hard to keep people on board during a transition period that lasts for years. To draw it out even further under the ridiculous, pie-in-the-sky assumption that the threat of a public plan will force the insurance companies to behave like decent corporate citizens is a tragic error. The insurance industry will take every penny it can get for as long as it can get it and the people who pay that price will blame the government who made them pay it, not them.

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It's fairly clear at this point that some sort of "public plan" is likely to be in the final bill, something that wasn't guaranteed a very short time ago. But nobody knows whether it's going to be a public plan in name only. Meanwhile some issues we've all been ignoring are coming to the surface. And they are very tough:
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Probably the most important element of all this is that the White House is finally showing its cards. They actually think it is important enough to have a "bipartisan" bill only one Republican votes for that they are willing to sacrifice a plan that has a chance to mitigate some of the risks inherent in the mandate and the delays in implementation. It would be hilarious if it weren't so deadly. Let's hope they have enough sense to take yes for answer if Reid and Pelosi offer up something different.


Update: The PCCC is launching a petition drive to ask President Obama to abandon this ill-conceived, nonsensical insistence on catering to Olympia Snowe in the name of bipartisanship.

You can sign here and see the ad they are running in Maine.