Obama to Address Joint Session of Congress

I cheated though and read about her involvement in negotiations at Ezra's earlier today.  I thought, this is the best thing he's written for a while.  Lo and behold, they are going to work with President Snowe.

Under the plan floated by Kerry, a public health care option would only be triggered by private insurance companies failing to meet certain criteria after ten years. Known as the "trigger" in legislative lingo, the idea is vociferously opposed by health care advocates who consider it the death of reform. HufPo

So the earliest a trigger would kick in is in 2029. Talk about giving the insurance industry license to continue to gorge us in premiums and reduce coverage at will. Then you have this little tidbit:

"Premiums are high," the New York Democrat said, "and either one or two insurers dominate the market. As we've seen with Medicare part D, a trigger option has so far meant no public option at all."

Indeed, as Schumer notes, there is a trigger in the Medicare part D program and, to this date, the conditions have never been met for a public option for prescription drug coverage. The standards were set by private market, all but ensuring that they would remain unreachable. Progressive officials working on health care reform worry that should the same system be put in place for insurance coverage, the same result will occur and public health care will never come to pass. HufPo

There is this strange belief among certain liberals that unless we keep our mouths shut, the politicians will decide that we're just a bunch of unreasonable ranters and will tune us out.

Local politics is so immediate, almost intimate. I know all my city council members. I know half of the county council members. Access.

It's also the same market that rewards private insurance companies for denying coverage and creating hoops so difficult to hop through that people end up dying before they get the care they need.

In fact they shouldn't call it the public option... Hmmm... if it is in fact the fallacy you speak of, my strategy would be similar to what Obama is proposing.  Lets kill the "public option" and instead we'll subsidize non-profit and private insurance.  That's a win-win, you get what you always wanted, yet have convinced people that you've killed what they feared.  I really wish there was a lot more concrete written about the actual details of the "public option".

Regarding the free market, no we haven't really had one.  It's a market, but not really a free market.  It has lacked the transparency necessary for people to make informed choices on products.  With no feedback loop on the quality of service you don't actually make a choice based on the quality of service.  

For example if I were to put two insurance policies in front of you could you tell me which one is better?  Probably not.  There's just too much which is unseen and not discoverable, even with the web.  But if I were to put two cell phone plans in front of you, you probably could.  

The thing they need to be careful of is that when you triangulate, you don't want to do it with the least popular position of all -- individual mandates without a serious cost-control mechanism. And you especially don't want to do it when that position is the exact opposite -- on both counts -- of your position during a campaign that you won by a wide margin.