White House Privately Trying To Sell Progressive Groups On “Trigger”?
Two high profile liberals are now suggesting that senior White House officials may be privately trying to sell progressive groups on a public option with a “trigger,” in the belief that it’s the only way to get Olympia Snowe’s support and get a bill through the Senate.
If this is true — and I’m not at all persuaded that it is — it would mean that the White House is moving away from a pure public option, which would surely inflame House liberals and perhaps lead to an intra-party schism.
The first liberal to make the claim: Mike Lux, who advised Obama aides during the transition and is plugged in with D.C. power liberals. He wrote:
Some senior White House staffers are now beginning to try to sell this trigger to progressive groups as the compromise version of a public option, saying the White House doesn’t want to have a floor fight in the Senate, and that they can always fix it in conference committee. That way they can pick up Snowe, satisfy that desperate urge for being officially bipartisan (even though Snowe can’t bring a single other Republican with her), and not have to worry about procedural hassles in the Senate.
I just spoke to Roger Hickey of the Campaign for America’s Future, another high-profile liberal who has been involved off and on in discussions with the White House, and he seemed to agree with Lux’s claim. “It appears to me that the White House is not trying for any other strategy except to satisfy Snowe with her version of the trigger,” he said.
To repeat: This may not be correct. But it’s worth noting, because it’s coming from fairly well-known D.C. liberals. I’ll update you as soon as I have more.
Update: An administration official is denying the story to Sam Stein.
Update II: Progressives on Capitol Hill tell TPM’s Brian Beutler that they haven’t been approached this way yet.
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Me personally, I’ve always thought it wasn’t a bad idea ever since John Kerry floated the idea back in June.
If it works the way its supposed to work, you end up getting the best of both worlds; less government and lower costs.
At FDL they make some similar points.
Orzag is suggesting, “it would be sufficient to either create nonprofit insurance-purchasing cooperatives or set “triggers” to activate a public option if needed to cut costs.“
And regards Snowe, they suggest that she is on board and that means, “that the White House will do anything to find a bipartisan compromise, and that includes working with Blue Dog Democrats and moderates in the House to support the co-ops and a trigger on the public option.”
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/23/theyve-got-snowe-onboard/
A Trigger Option makes no sense.
It would be just as hard to pass that worthless bit of feel good fantasy, without actually doing any good, as it would be to pass a public option now.
If a public option would make sense in the future, it is because the Health Care Insurance business is broken, when it comes to providing coverage for all, while controlling costs.
I made this proposal before, and this is a good time to do so again.
Let us have a reverse trigger option. A Public Option for then years, to see how it does. At the end of ten years, it gets evaluated, and if the results show that it has not worked, then the trigger kicks in to kill it.
If you know any Progressive Reps, please pass on that counter offer to them. That way the can be showing to compromise, without having sold out.
A Ten Year Public Option Trial Period only. Who could be against that.
edit. for ten years.
Greg. Please get a preview feature soon.
Since there is absolutely NO confirmation of this, I think that this is just gossip.
In terms of the trigger, Snowe’s trigger isn’t strong enough. If Democrats are going to compromise on a trigger than the trigger needs to be STRONG.
The public option ia already needed to cut costs. An individual mandate to buy insurance without any choice of whom to buy it from is a load fo ****!
Stand up and fight dammit!
I’m gonna be honest here.
During the campaign, I don’t remember Obama ever talking up a public option. The line I remember being repeated over and over was he wanted to give everyone the same options members of Congress have, which is a pool of private insurers.
Of course, I didn’t keep his issues section of his campaign web site. Maybe someone else did to see if this was ever part of what he was aiming for.
Sure, plans can change and many of his campaign promises have had to bend to fit the realities of the changing environment.
Although it wouldn’t stop the people at FDL from getting their undies in a purity twist if true, I suspect the real goal is to make sure that they at get to conference with a Senate bill that at least has a triggered public option on the assumption that the House bill will have the full deal.
In the conference negotiations, the middle ground between a full-bore public option in the House version and and a triggered public option in the Senate’s, is going to be a hell of a lot more palatable to progressives than the middle ground between “full-bore public option” and “nada, zip, bupkis.”
For that matter, the same logic applies when the Senate leadership blends the Finance and HELP bills.
If you think it is hard trying to sell it to these idiots, just wait until you try to sell it to voters. Everyone knows what Obama wants single payer and that he will lie to get it. Ultimately the progressive caucus will be the only ones supporting the trigger because they won’t believe it either (to them a a government takeover of our healthcare system is a feature not a bug).
Liam … let me check in with tech people on the preview function
“I’m gonna be honest here.”
Begs the question – your usual comments are … ? (Joking)
I think you are 100% correct. Both Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias have made the point that the public option is only a recent (and largely unproven) idea. I would also note that some of Obama’s recent statements also fall short of promising universal coverage.
In addition, Pelosi has backed off her full-throated support for a robust public option.
“Pelosi’s spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, pushed back against recent news reports that Speaker Pelosi was going to drop the deal that she had made with the Blue Dog Democrats not to have the public option be pegged to Medicare plus rates in order to be competitive. Here’s what he said below:
Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami emailed us late last night to assert that no final decisions have been made on the shape of the public option: “It is inaccurate for anyone to assert that the Speaker or the Leadership has determined the form of the public option. How we move forward on the public option will continue to be discussed by the Leadership and the Caucus, which will meet on Thursday.”
Here is one thing that this move by the White House reveals. They are feeling the heat from Progressives about the Public Option. That is great news. That means that we are not caving in on it. We should not.
A future trigger would be impossible to design, in such a manner, that the Insurance Racketeers would not figure out how to game it. For example; if the trigger set levels of coverage, and overhead cost standards that must be met by a certain year, to keep the trigger from kicking in, then all the Racketeers will have to do is waih it out, and on the year before the trigger deadline, take a hit for one year, to meet the target numbers. That would disarm the trigger, for ever, and then it would be back to business as usual.
Off topic
Here’s another hypocrisy watch article. Mandated public option flood insurance promoted by Repubs after Katrina. You can even buy it the day before a flood or huricane may be coming. Looks like they value property over people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-cay-johnston/gop-favors-public-option_b_296703.html
Mike from Arlington,
I don’t remember Obama talking that much about the public option either during the campaign.
I think that we should be careful in assuming that the White House is pushing the Snowe’s trigger proposal. They don’t have to convince activists but rather they need to convince the House members and Senate.
I doubt very seriously that any White House member has spoken to liberal activists.
# Greg Sargent | September 23rd, 2009 at 04:17 pm
Liam … let me check in with tech people on the preview function
………………………..
Thanks Greg.
Being an old diabetic, my reading vision is not the greatest, and the comment box is not very user friendly.
While you are asking them about the preview feature, would you also ask them about providing a link to a previous comment or comments feature. That would be very useful, and cut down on a lot of repeat postings, or having someone often posting extracts, out of context.
Thanks much.
Liam
What’s to prevent the insurers from always being just below that trigger from now to eternity? How will that lower costs?
@Imsinca.
A Trigger Option is just a Potemkin Village setup. It will look good, and we can go home and brag about how we passed it, but it would not have made any real change.
It is just as worthless as those stupid non-binding resolutions that officials keep passing.
If they lack the guts to pass real health care reform, then I would rather they stop trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
My fall back position is:
If we can not pass real reform, then let us pass a Private Health Insurance Poison Pill bill.
Beef up HIPA. Make it against the law for Insurance Companies to ask any questions about a person’s medical history, and forbid them from accessing any.
Make it so they must cover all people, and they must not be allowed to refuse to pay for any medical treatments that are on the Medicare approved list.
That will stop them from profiling people, and dropping them. Let them determine what people must pay, and they must charge all people the same rates. Since they will no longer have any access to people’s medical records, they will not be in any position to fiddle with the rates, based on one’s medical history.
Either a Public Option, or this poison pill fall back solution. I expect that the rates would still continue to soar, and within a few years people will be then be clamoring for a Public Option.
The only way a trigger is acceptable is if a.) as per Wyden’s idea, the exchange is open to all people and expands the pool of insurers; b.) the P.O., when and if it is triggered, is not restricted to certain states; c.) the P.O. itself is so robust that the mere threat of its implementation is enough to keep the insurers in check.
If the public option doesn’t kick in immediately and the exchanges aren’t set up until 2013: what do the Democrats run on?
The President proposed catastrophic coverage; but that is not the best stopgap IMO.
House democrats need a strong health care bill to go and sell in their districts, they need to say I got x health care, got you a lower payment, and changed your life and the lives of countless others in this country and not a single republican voted in support of this.
That is what needs to happen and that requires money and brass balls to take a vote that won’t be popular until everyone sees money in their pockets from health care. Just like Medicare is sacred now, so too would a national public option and health insurance exchanges like those enjoyed by federal workers.
Hell, if everyone had the benefits federal workers get Obama would be the next FDR. Even the racists would go, “well, he’s half white!”
JMHO: The democrats are missing a real opportunity to make a government program that matters and thereby recreating the government is good feeling of the 40’s IMO.
If you read his other comments (posted on TPM) he says:
“and that they can always fix it in conference committee,” Lux writes. ”
That means that the WH just wants a bill with a triggered public option to pass the senate and then it can be merged with the house bill that has a public option – and they can make it a regular trigger-less public option in conference committee before it goes back for a vote.
Rhoda: The president has said that any bill he signs would immediately make it illegal to deny or drop anyone over pre-existing conditions. That’s probably the easiest thing to implement right away, and it’s easy to sell politically as an immediate success as well as a building block for the reforms that will be in process.