Why do you need a trigger since all the proposals currently on the table have the program begining in 2013?

The devil is definitely in the details on a trigger.  Like withdrawal from Iraq, I'll feel better about it if the benchmarks are clear and indisputable.  You don't want some kind of vague deal like "you insurance companies better shape up, or then we'll really get serious about regulating you!!"

Mind you, the whole concept of cost and quality benchmarks is pretty silly because if the cost and quality of the private health care plans are acceptable to people, no one will want to switch to the public option anyway.  In a manner of speaking, we'd be choosing to enact price controls ("you must meet this price by this date or else") as opposed to a market-based solution ("we're giving you a new competitor, now go beat them") and somehow the former choice is more palatable to conservatives.  Politics is a weird business.

I guess I'd hope the reaction of the House Progressives would be not so much that a trigger is unacceptable, but more that it simply makes no sense.  We're already making huge concessions to the people who believe "a public option will be armageddon because everyone will switch!!" by proposing that eligibility for the public option will be severely restricted at the outset.

How about a combination of the approaches, where you start out with a public option that's available to people who are uninsured or within hailing distance of the poverty line, and then there's a trigger where if the private insurance companies fail to meet their benchmarks, the public option automatically becomes open to everyone.

One follow up question: how many votes will this produce from the GOP to include this trigger? It sounds like 1 vote.

Hey!! I have an idea!!

How about a 60 year trigger?  In other words, if the insurance industry cannot stop themselves from fucking the American people for a period of 60 years, then this would trigger a fully public option.

Even if we give them their 60 years, the trigger is self-executing.  In other words, THE INSURANCE COMPANIES HAVE HAD THEIR 60 YEARS OF FUCKING AMERICA.

The trigger has already triggered.  Time for real health reform.  

Let's see we have laws against illegal wiretaps. We national and international laws against torture - capital offense that.

Those laws are vigorously enforced by our DOJ and Congress.

I am sure a trigger will get equal attention.

Wow, because the bill as it is isn't byzantine enough.  How do you "trigger" an expansion of medicaid?  I'm imagining the cardboard-cutout town in Blazing Saddles here.

How about a reverse trigger?  "The public option will be dismantled if...."

this is a last ditch attempt to pass a bill under normal Senate rules.  I'm sure the move is to get Snowe for vote #60 and then leverage the Conservadems by saying "OK, if you don't vote for cloture, we'll go to Reconciliation where everyone says if we are including a P.O. it needs to be more robust."  This leverages the conservadems because if they ultimately vote against reform, they are toast and they know it.

Why would pro-P.O. forces accept this?  The reason is that a P.O. might not make it through reconciliation.  There certainly wouldn't be the 60 votes to include it anyway if the parliamentarian rules against it.

Will it be successful?  I want to see how this plays out.

Stop trying to get any Republicans, pass a good bill ourselves and get on to the Energy and Education legs of the Obama three leg stool already!

One final follow up: A new poll from CNN- wide scale support for the PO after a month of attacks and no back up by President (I am a corporaDem) Obama.

I am guessing that Blue Dogs will lose around 20 seats next year as per Cook. The left will be blamed for it. But we all know here today that truth- you can thank Presiden Obama's lack of leadership.

as though Obama and his folks couldn't make an easy and popular issue like a medicare choice (public option) confusing enough they had to add triggers.

Although I support a strong public option, it seems to me that the fundamental issues are: (1) providing universal coverage; (2) ensuring that insurance cannot be denied on the basis of pre-existing conditions; (3) precluding a carrier from dropping coverage; (4) developing a database of 'best practices' for maximizing the probability of 'best outcomes'; and (5) decreasing medical costs over time.

The public option is the best option available for (5), and would, over time discipline costs of private plans. However, the same result could be achieved by setting targets for 'bending the cost curve' and using those targets as the basis for 'triggering' the public option.

Does it offend me that health care is a profit center for private companies? Yes. Does it offend me that any politically feasible bill will enable private insurers to reap profits at the expense of both the sick and well? Yes. However, if it takes swallowing morally repugnant policies s to ensure that we achieve universal health coverage, I'm willing to do that. Those that condemn the insurance companies for making ungodly profits on the back of the sick should think carefully about whether they would like to demand 'purity' and kill health care of any sort -- thus enabling the insurance companies to continue on their paths to profit while doing nothing for fellow Americans in need.

Better than what Ezra Klein is talking about... Rahm wants something so scaled back that it does absolutely nothing!  Great!  What a joke...  60 dem senators and you can't even get a half-assed health reform bill in...

based on medicare rates!

saves the most money and meets the budgetary requirements for reconcilliation

All I've  got to say is....suckers.

Enjoy some reasoned and excellent ideas from Rep. Weiner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTh-Yu9Rf F0&feature=related

 You guys sure startle easily.

Trigger?

Where the hell was that when he got his 750 Billion to hand out to banks?

Its a bone Obama is tossing us to cover up his cowardice and lies.  The trigger will never happen and everybody knows it - just more lies from the coward Obama.

I'm going to come right out and say it - I want the health insurance companies out of business.  All you're really doing is prepaying your own medical care anyway, and the insurance company takes its cut off the top for adding basically no value.  If there was ever an industry with no reason to exist, this is it.

No trigger.  "Quality and cost benchmarks" are virtually impossible to define exactly and even harder to determine on a national basis with any accuracy at all.  It would become the insurance company's word against politicians.  That CANNOT work.

NONE of this fixes the biggest problem - insurance company LIES.  I buy my own coverage, but Blue Cross denied my son's tonsilitis visit because we went to the walk-in clinic on Sunday instead of waiting for the hospital on Monday.  They told me this a month after it happened and denied ALL coverage.  LIES.  They say I'm covered, but just TRY to actually use it, and they LIE and deny.

THAT has to stop.

If there's a trigger mechanism instead of just launching the public option automatically, I can only hope that the benchmarks are VERY aggressive.  The insurance companies have to clean up their acts and start serving their customers first, and going easy on them won't get us there.

Perfect.  The never-ending August.

No one will be happy with a trigger except the insurance giants.  As others have said, it will never be employed.  Even more importantly, the deal makes the Dems pie-in-the-face losers.  

They give up the one hope for real reform for the approval of ONE Rethug?  Not really.  They give up reform because Obama has sold out to the corporations.  Emmanuel is a shill.  They never intended to set up a public alternative to the insurance industry.  Sellouts!