Those pushing big government-run health care have started a Gimmick of the Day Club. Desperate to find support, they trot out a new variation almost daily. However they repackage their bad ideas, they feel confident that most media will hail each “new” variation as a breakthrough: The “trigger” is the hokiest, basically delaying implementation unless something drastic happens (like the sun rising in the east). The “opt-out” is as credible as expecting the Mafia to tell shopkeepers that they’re free to stop paying tribute at any time. It’s a sham.
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that the health care legislation he is drafting will include a government-run health insurance plan, or as many on the left like to call it “the public option.” The new wrinkle that Reid has thrown into the proposal is an “opt out” clause which would require states to pass legislation by 2014 rejecting participation in the federal government run plan. None of the committees in the House or Senate ever even voted on this new opt out scheme. But that does not …
Hill Tube has a video up of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) talking about the obunlic option “trigger” at yesterday’s news conference. The video does not appear to be embeddable, but here is a rough transcript: A trigger is an excuse for not doing anything. But everybody’s open to listening to what people have to say. The point is made over and over again that for one reason or another the trigger was not effective in Medicare Part D. … I believe that the bill is the trigger. If anybody wants …
The past week has seen a great deal of talk of a “trigger” compromise to the “public option.” Essentially this would delay the implementation of the government run plan to an unspecified date, subverting the legislative process and offering moderate members of Congress a temporary shield from owning the government bureacracy they are creating. But don’t take our word for it. Here is Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaking bluntly in today’s Politico: Pelosi also warned insurance companies to accept a public option without a trigger, arguing that a public plan …
For most of 2009, President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have been obsessed with a “public option” for health care, which would create a government-run health care system that would eventually monopolize the industry and create the single-payer system liberals have long desired. Even when town hall protesters by the thousands jeered the concept; they stood by it. Even when poll numbers reflected a small minority of support; they stood by it. Even when study after study showed that millions of Americans would be forced out of their …
