Opt-Out Noses Ahead of Trigger at the Wire

Last Friday it looked like the most likely compromise on including a public option in the healthcare bill was Olympia Snowe's "trigger." But either that was just a feint or else everyone changed their minds over the weekend:

Or, reports by Poltico and the AP which kicked off that particular media narrative stampede were just wrong.

Strive For The Ideal, But Deal With What's Real

I wouldn't be surprise if Snowe votes Yes at the last minute. If they have the votes without her, she loses nothing by getting on the right side of history.

Who the hell does Olympia Snow think she is that she, as a Senator from a small state, can deny citizens of my state a choice they want very much? Or Conrad from Souh Dakota, Lincoln from the very unrepresentative Arkansas, etc.

Time to shut-the-you-know-what-up, Olympia, and re-think your obligations to the American people. If you and other Republicans can convince the people of Maine that the public option is a terrible idea that should be rejected, you will have plenty of opportunity. Time to come down from the fantasy Mount Olympus you've created for yourself.

I'm also sick and tired of so many players treating the question whether something "has the votes" as a fixed verity that cannot be moved. It's so passive it's disgusting. Damn it, move the votes, Harry and Barack and Rahm and Valerie and David (and all the rest of you). The policy position of the opponents is absurd and utterly indefensible -- siding with profits and outrageous CEO salaries against the interest of the American people in driving down the cost of insurance as much as possible -- so use whatever pressure you need to force the holdouts to change it. Not using it makes it look like the support claimed by the White House is one big lie. Show us it's not.

Will any so-called reporter demand -- demand -- of Olympia and the rest of them to explain how they can justify taking this choice away from the American people? We've been at this for several months, and nobody, not even the White House that's supposedly for it and to my recollection nobody from the national media of self-important reporters, has bothered to require the opponents to defend their positions in terms of what's best for the American people with the slightest pushback against their frivolous arguments.

The concept of the public option as designed in the main House bill -- a non-profit that by law, just like any other non-profit, must live solely from its premiums and not using any general revenues -- is fair competition that a well-run private entity should be able to deal with. It is up to such a company to find its niche providing better service to its customers than a more cumbersome public agency may be able to do. If it does, it will succeed and will be profitable. Taking a public option away is artificially propping up insurance companies profits and asking Americans to pay more for that purpose. That is an utterly outrageous position, and a marginally competent reporter should be probing those questions deeply.