Liberal Talk Radio

The Obama white house is backing Sen. Olympia Snowe’s trigger proposal for the public option in the health care debate. If insurance coverage becomes too expensive in a given region, the trigger kicks in and the public option is created.

I think the idea is pure fantasy. The idea that some future congress will enact the public option when health care is no longer in the spotlight is pretty daft. They’ll just kick the can down the road every year, like they’ve done for hears with the Alternative Minimum Tax and Medicare reimbursement rates.

Besides, isn’t an article like this enough to convince anyone that it’s well past time to pull said trigger?

In August, when Walter Rowen, who owns Susquehanna Glass in Columbia, Pa., sought to renew his company’s coverage for two dozen employees, he said his insurer demanded a 160 percent rate increase. Mr. Rowen said he was told his work force was “getting too old and very expensive.”

Mr. Rowen said his insurance broker found that any other health plan was likely to charge 30 to 50 percent more than he paid last year. He chose a less generous plan from a different carrier for 44 percent more.

160 percent!! But apparently Obama/Snowe think the best idea is to wait until 2013 (when health care reform kicks in) and then wait a few more years to see if it hasn’t held down costs, and then maybe, just maybe, see if we need the public option

Just nuts.