Top House Progressive: Backing Public Option “Trigger” Would Be “Surrender”
Dem Rep. Raul Grijalva, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is issuing a strong rebuke to fellow liberals who may be inclined to accept a compromise involving a public option “trigger,” saying it would amount to waving a “white flag” and “a surrender.”
Grijalva made the claim after I checked in with his office for a comment on today’s Roll Call story reporting that some “key” House progressives are open to such a compromise. In a statement emailed to me, Grijalva said that most House progressives would in fact stand firm and still vote against a bill with a trigger:
“The vast majority of CPC is not prepared to wave a white flag on public option. A trigger would be a surrender.”
If the “vast majority” of the five dozen or so House progressives did vote against the bill, as Grijalva vows they would, it wouldn’t pass.
Also noteworthy: Grijalva’s description of a trigger as “surrender” leaves liberals no wiggle room to support it. When it comes to the trigger, House progressive leaders are refusing to budge.
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This doesn’t seem to be too important to me – I don’t think his words really mean that much. House progressives would vote against a trigger bill in the House, then the Senate would pass a trigger bill. The question is: how would he vote for a reconciled bill that contains a trigger?
Great news!
Thanks Greg.
Finally to see some progressives stand strong is so good for our future. We will see the same or worse on cap and trade and EFCA. Might as well draw the line now.
If this whole thing goes down in flames, which is becoming more and more likely, we’ll have the “progressives” to thank for the total *lack* of progress on health care.
No it won’t. I support the trigger if it has teeth. Nate Silver wrote a great post about this and how this could work.
I think in the end the reconciled bill will have a trigger in it and it will pass both the Senate with 60 votes and the House with more than 218 votes.
Roll call has an article in which some of the progressives are saying that they are looking at the trigger.
In the end I just don’t see the House progressives saying “NO” to health care reform if the trigger has teeth.
Susan, just fyi, Grijalva was responding specifically to the roll call piece…
It’s nice to see someone take a stand. Rep. Grijalva may be a minor player, but he’s brave enough to tell Obama to stuff it. I can’t remember a time in America where there’s been such a dearth of leadership.
Somebody needs to contact Woolsey & Grijalva and get a formal count.
Greg; Re this observation from you:
“If the “vast majority” of the five dozen or so House progressives did vote against the bill, as Grijalva vows they would, it wouldn’t pass.”
Isn’t their a chance, that if the bill is watered down to just a weak “trigger option” that many Republicans would help pass it, despite those sixty or so Progressives voting against it?
The more the bill is shaped to only engage in pretend reform, the more likely it becomes that it will be passed with Republican votes.
what a bunch of bull, converse. You can blame the Blue Dogs and Rahm Emmanuel- they’re the encouraging the backroom dealing with the insurance companies, big pharma, and Olympia Snowe. You can blame Max Baucus for delaying us a month for a **** bill. You cannot logically blame the progressives UNLESS you are looking for a scape-goat. The progressives are trying to keep reform honest. The only ones, I might add.
Why pass a reform bill that is acceptable to the Anti-reformers”
Wouldn’t it be better to pass nothing, and let the small businesses and chambers of commerce stew in their own juices for a while longer, while the Private Insurance Ponzi operators continue to raise the rates to a level that most businesses will not be able to afford. Sometimes you have to let things get worse, before people are ready to make real changes.
Why not just pass a bill that requires the Insurance Companies to cover everyone from cradle to grave, with no exceptions, and they must do so without any government funding. Eliminate all government backed Medicare coverage, and SCHIP, or any other type of government funded programs. Toss them all into the laps of the Insurance Scammers. Private coverage only, cradle to grave, and that will provide the shock treatment that will bring the people to their senses.
You want government out of health care coverage. Fine, here it is, now all you elderly, and all of you parents with uncovered children, go take it up with those Private Insurance companies.
Surely every Republicans Senator and Rep. will vote for such a change, since it is what they have been running on for years.
Give it all to them, and I guarantee that the elderly and the parents of uncovered children will demand that we save them from the Private Health Insurance Robber Barons.
Give the Republicans their prescription, and the country will soon revolt against them.
No trigger passed by this congress will have any teeth, trust me. Look at the record so far. If it did have any teeth then the public option would “kick-in” everywhere and it would be the same as having a full public option. The private insurers’ lackies in congress will keep this from happening. It’s all window dressing. ALL OF IT!
Right on, Mark. The last twenty years of no reform were the trigger. Big Insurance has killed enough people. Now it’s time to put them out of their misery.
Here’s the framework of the Baucus plan. It’s fairly easy to read and understand. There are insurance reforms, medi-care reforms,midi-caid expansions, low income subsidies, individual & business mandates, taxes on insurance co’s for expensive plans, 4 levels of plans, the lowest covering only 65%, fees enacted on insurance, pharma, medical equipment etc. and co-ops. I don’t see anywhere that cost controls come in. Looks to me like a pretty good deal for the industry.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/BaucusFramework.pdf
Let us distill the opponents’ reason for not wanting a government funded Public Option.
They say that a government funded operation would be very poorly run, and extremely inefficient, because government never works well.
Then the Private Insurance Gang chimes in with;
A Public option is something that we could not compete with, and it would drive us out of business.
So to sum up, boys and girls; The Insurance Gang says that we just can not compete with a Public Option that will not be managed well, and be extremely wasteful.
There you have it; The Insurance Gang openly confessing, that they would not be able to compete against what Public Option opponents claim would be a vastly wasteful, and badly run Public Option.
Since the Insurance Company just admitted, that even in the face of competition from a public option, they would never be able to clean up their act, then why waste time with a Trigger option,since the Insurance Company already confessed that they will never be able to improve to the point where the trigger option will never have to kick in.
They said the can’t compete against a public option, so why would you expect them to compete to a level that would eliminate the need for the Public Option.
I understand why people are posturing right now. But, when all is said and done, will progressives actually blow up legislation over the public option? Would they kill the most progressive advance in social policy in about a century over the public option?
The public option may be popular nationally. But, the reality is that there are simply not the votes to pass the public option in the Senate. Why? Because some of those Senate Democrats come from “red” states that are strongly opposed to the public option. There are not 60 votes for it in the Senate, and it’s not even clear that the Democratic coalition in the Senate would hold to break a filibuster.
Democrats helped Republicans kill healthcare in 1994. We all know how well that worked for Democrats. So, the notion that anyone is even entertaining a repeat of history is troubling, and it should be troubling for all Democrats. The final bill may not be perfect, but a good bill is still attainable. A good bill could secure Democratic majorities. No bill will jeopardize those majorities.
“Isn’t their a chance, that if the bill is watered down to just a weak “trigger option” that many Republicans would help pass it”
No. The Republicans are going to vote against this bill. It doesn’t matter what is in it. For them, success is no bill at all.
@jinchi: On another thread other commentors are admitting that the trigger and public option are really just trojan horse for single payer. Given that, can you really blame the Repubs for voting against anything at all?
The only Red State Democrats that need to sit it out on the Public Option are those up for election in 2010. How many of them are there? Those running in 2012, have plenty of time to let people digest the new system. If the health reform act turns out to be a dog, then they Democrats will be swept out anyway, so they might as well show some Profiles In Courage, and vote for what is best for all the people.
The Trigger proposal makes no sense. It is saying that we will go to a public option, if the Insurance companies do not provide what the Public Option would. Then either pass the Public Option, or pass a law that requires the Private Insurance Companies to meet the Trigger standards now. Why allow them to not live up to those standards for years to come, even though the Trigger Option is clearly establishing that it’s standards are what the country must have.
Health care “reform” without a public option is not reform at all. The public option (let alone single payer!) is the POINT of reform; it’s the stick.
Regulation? Look how well regulation worked on Wall Street — the power players just bought off the regulators and the fox was guarding the henhouse. How will this be different?
“Triggers?” If the health insurance industry is in dire straits enough to need reform, why wouldn’t we have passed the “trigger” point ALREADY? And besides, is there anyone here naive enough to really believe that triggers won’t just turn into a way to punt this entire battle onto the NEXT administration (when the triggers become “active”) or to simply give us faux reform but still claim a “major victory” when the triggers are so loosely worded that they can NEVER be activated?
Come on, you many not agree with us progressives, but we’re not stupid. We know when something is really reform, and we know that it’s not reform just because you CALL it reform.
…and what’s so bad about single payer?
Medicare — the most popular and successful insurance plan in the nation — is single payer. Wanna strip away Medicare so our seniors can learn how to make their way in the rough-and-tumble world of “competition” (the president’s new favorite word)?
@Tom: Eliminating insurance recission because insurance companies think it’s too expensive to cover things like chemotherapy is not reform? Capping the amounts that individuals would have to pay for medical bills is not reform? Preventing discrimination based on a preexisting conditions is not reform? Expanding Medicaid so that more poor individuals have access to healthcare is not reform? Narrowing or eliminating the “doughnut hole” in Medicare is not reform? Creating a regulated marketplace that consumers can access even when they don’t have employment is not reform?
I understand that many on the left are beholden to the public option. But, it’s disingenuous to suggest that anything that does not include the public option is “not REAL reform” or is simply “not reform.” The rhetoric sounds compelling, but it doesn’t comport with reality.
All of the reforms that I listed above would be substantial advances in social policy. They would all greatly benefit this nation. And, guess what? None of them are contingent on the public option.
The public option remains a compelling aspect of healthcare reform. But, it simply is not the totality of reform.
A inefficient and poorly run government program (a redundancy) can and will be subsidized. Sorry, not much of a contradiction. The “public option” is an admitted Trojan horse.
Tom, first, I think you are confused about what a single payer system actually is. A true single payer system is a de jure government monopoly, under which it is actually forbidden to obtain or provide services outside the system. At least, if you want words to have meanings, that is what those words mean.
It is a wonderful example of cognitive dissonance for liberals to advocate single payer systems on the ground that health care is a right.
@quarterback: those are myths. A single-payer system is one where there is one payer for your medical bills. “Forbidden to obtain or provide services outside the system”? I hope they won’t be paying for witch doctors. Meanwhile, a single-payer covers private physicians, hospitals, and ancillary services (labs and x-ray); hardly a monopoly.
People out there screaming about a single-payer plan require more study halls and fewer town halls.
Responses disappeared last night.
Oh well, Michael, you don’t know what you are talking about. Single payer means single payer. Period. If the government is the single payer, it controls access to health care. And your freedom is gone. Get a clue.
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