Maine’s Senator Olympia Snowe has proposed that the Public Option be included in health care reform, but its implementation would not be triggered until and unless other reforms passed failed to solve the problems. This is an idea I oppose, and thankfully, I am not alone.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday shot down a healthcare compromise that has been viewed as the best chance for getting a bipartisan bill through the Senate.
Pelosi (D-Calif.) rejected the idea of a “trigger” for a public option. That means that the government-run healthcare plan would be a fallback option, enacted only if other reforms didn’t make healthcare more accessible.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who is being courted by the Obama administration as their best hope for getting a Republican to sign on to President Barack Obama’s healthcare initiative, supports a trigger. But Pelosi does not.
“I don't even want to talk about a trigger,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. She said the “attitude” of her fellow Democrats is that “a trigger is an excuse for not doing anything.”
By dismissing a trigger, she also risks further alienating Blue Dog Democrats, who are angry at Pelosi's handling of the bill, particularly her push to include a public option supported by the liberal wing of the caucus. Blue Dogs at times have threatened to block the bill… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <The Hill>
When presented with a clearly worded question that explains the Public Option without bias, Americans’ choice is clear, as this Times/CBS poll showed yesterday.
"Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan -- something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get -- that would compete with private health insurance plans?"
Favor 65%
Oppose 26%
… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <TPM>
If market forces could bring down insurance company premiums, and thus, make their huge profits less obscene, it would have already happened. Market forces will not work, because the health insurance industry is an oligopoly, not a free market. So why add a trigger to a gun with no bullets?
5 comments:
Hey, Democrats! Although I left your silly party over a decade ago, my heart is still essentially with your platform and agenda. That being said, I would ask all of you to think of me as Dr. Degan, your loving and trusted family veterinarian. After a complete and thorough examination of your beloved pets, it grieves me to offer you this final diagnosis:
Your Blue Dogs must be put to sleep.
Let's stop kidding ourselves and face some serious and uncomfortable facts here, okay? Any chance of serious health care reform is about as dead as the nails the GOP has spent the last nine years hammering into their own coffin. And the biggest irony? It was killed by a coalition of "Conservative Democrats" - or DINOs: Democrats In Name Only - which begs the musical question: With donkeys like these, who the hell needs elephants?
Tom, you may well be correct. However, I shall maintain hope and keep harassing my Rep. and Senators sever times a week.
oops! make that several
Good post, Tom.
You beat me to the punch. As I read the title, I was thinking what you said in your closing sentence. :)
Thanks Tim. It was a natural. :-)
Post a Comment