Trigger’s not only dead, but stuffed and mounted.

I’d say any applicable triggers for health care got pulled early in the Clinton years.

How long is this health care debate going to drag on?

the government giving tax subsidy for those who can’t afford it is nothing bt a gift to private industry and license to bilk our taxes to the same tune as no bid contractors

scarecrow has been trying to rehabilitate Snowe’s image and cast her as a moderate. I think this trigger nonsense shows she is about as amenable to change as Joe Lieberman who just happens to be an ally of hers.

this WITCHEAD is the 10th richest congresscritter,Mom andDAD died of diseases when she was a kid
SHE HAS BEEN ON PUBLIC HEALTH SINCE AGE 26
she is despicable

There is already a tax subsidy for current healthcare plans…that’s why we have the employer based system in the first place. AFAIK health benefit plans were initially an efficient way to compensate higher tax bracket employees…and it expanded from there.

gale norton stole one trillion dollars for her new employer. is olympia and max are stealing more than that.
are they going to go to work for health care after they leave the senate or become of counsel like tom daschle?

Heh! She’s only moderate when it doesn’t count.

Exactly right. Pure theater.

The object is to prevent any public option ever. No trigger that actually had even a 50/50 chance of being pulled will ever be proposed. Triggers are bad ideas in the first place, but they cannot even make a good faith proposal of one, because the only purpose ot to protect insurance comany monopolies.

Reeal McCarran-Fergusin anti-trust immunity.

What is this 95% phrase? It only has to be available to the 95% healthiest and the sickest go without? Forgive my cynicism, please, but I want to know who’s in the 5% who aren’t offerred anything and how will they be covered? Everyone who wants to be covered MUST be covered or this is all BULLSHIT!

Oh! And, yes, I agree triggers are BULLSHIT! These would never be pulled.

Poor typing.

Repeal McCarran-Ferguson anti-trust immunity and provide a public option.

Lindsey Graham: Triggers are a sham, they’re never been pulled on any bill.

No triggers!

Based on the picture of Ms. Snowe at TPM, I ask, “Why won’t she take her furrowed brow and go home?” We don’t want a trigger. Robust public option or nothing! Why can’t anyone in D. C. hear what the people are asking for?

Trigger is a term, by the way, for a database mechanism defined as followed:

A database trigger is procedural code that is automatically executed in response to certain events on a particular table or view in a database.

Triggers are commonly used to:

* prevent changes (e.g. prevent an invoice from being changed after it’s been mailed out)
* log changes (e.g. keep a copy of the old data)
* audit changes (e.g. keep a log of the users and roles involved in changes)
* enhance changes (e.g. ensure that every change to a record is time-stamped by the server’s clock, not the client’s)
* enforce business rules (e.g. require that every invoice have at least one line item)
* execute business rules (e.g. notify a manager every time an employee’s bank account number changes)
* replicate data (e.g. store a record of every change, to be shipped to another database later)
* enhance performance (e.g. update the account balance after every detail transaction, for faster queries)

In this context, triggers would enforce or execute business rules applied to a health insurance schema. The Snowe amendment is an example of such rules.

This is hardly even an interim solution to the health care problem in this country. If you don’t lay out the causes then you can’t create a solution.

Health care is a right. Our government guarantees our rights. We don’t need to buy access to our rights and certainly to insurance companies who are interested in profit not health.

We need to take a long hard look at profit taking in the health care sector.

If we can’t ween ourselves off of the profit incentive, we then have to get serious about taxing incomes / profits so that excesses are returned to the people/government and used for the commonweal.

Progressives and Republicans should kill this bill and start over.

The concept of affordabilty needs to be broadened. The fact that the insurance company provides me with a plan that fits this high payment level, it is still ignoring what must be spent before having insurance participate in paying for your care. There has been no mention of Deducibles for this affordable plan. Lets say that they offere their pre-existing non-exempt plan for 600 a month. That means premiunms are at 8,000 a year. The additional costs for this plan would be the money that has to be extended before the insurance company pays a dime. That is the deductible. Say the deductible is 5000. That would mean that a truer cost of the plan is 13,000. You have to pay 8,000 to stay covered, but you have to pick up the 5K before they pay anything. Then there is copay. There were discussions in the finance group of having copays as high as 35%. So if you had a medical expense of 10000, you would pay the first 5K and then pay 35% of the remaining 5K, or an additional 1750. If that is the only medical expense for the year, this policy would have cost you 14750. It could be much higher because you will be required to pay 35% of everything spent thereafter. If you have a hospital stay of say two weeks and your bill were 200,000 you would be required to pay an additional 70,000. They have spent all of this time focuing on affordability of the premiums either because they did not understand the issue (probably only a couple of them) or they are bneing basically dishonest.

If this is all Snowe has to offer, she’s got another glaring problem. She has words to address the “affordable” part of “affordable coverage” but ignores the “coverage” part. The insurance industry has already increased deductibles, -co-pays, and exclusions to the point that policies today are at best medical bankruptcy insurance. By jiggering numbers and exclusions they can easily reduce coverage to the point of “affordability” and keep the trigger on safety.

Nor would it do to inject a coverage trigger. The concept is infinitely manipulable. The industry will fight tooth and nail if need be to prevent it’s being pulled. ore likely, though, it will never come to that because of regulatory capture. Bill Clinton won a trigger for drug importation, but it’s subject to HHS certification. We’ve yet to see a certification. Why is obvious to anyone who reads around and knows the power of the drug industry.

Really, this is laughable.

got yer trigger right here !

You are not correct on that one. The triggers you are talking about are designed to come into play when a set of circumstances arrive that require a distinct solution set to be executed. Once the criterea is identified, a background program triggers the execution, usually saving the day. In this case the trigger for the public option is more like having the sign on your front window that your house is protected by alarm system. It is supposed to notify passerbys that this house would be harder to rob than other houses because of the system. The fact that you do not have the system or ever intended to have the system does not matter. The sign of having something even though it is not really there is hoped will stop a particular action. So it is in this case. The trigger, like the one on the Medicare part D drug plan will be set to never go off. The trigger itself is there only as an “alarm sign” to convince liberals that people that vote for the trigger actually voted for the public option even though there is no public option. The trigger itself as proposed would allow only for a state by state public option response. Meaning that even if the trigger mechanism were accidentally triggered the public option would be little more than a one state only response. Neutering it to the strength of the coop fantasy. Even if triggered this would only initiate the process of thinking about a single state public option. By that time no one would notice that it would get blown off.

Sorry Olympia but, your services are no longer needed. I just checked out a poll on the dailykos which was done by NATE SILVER! Those of you who know who Nate is should take this very seriously. He basically predicted with stunning accuracy that Obama would win and which states. Anyway, Nate’s poll took 4 blue dog states – Arkansas, Michigan, Georgia and Texas and asked whether they favored the public option and all did. The poll also found that Democrats were more likely to not reelect these clowns if they voted against a public option. Most disturbing was the fact that even higher percentages of Independants would not vote to reelect them if they voted against the public option. These liars keep claiming that their constituents are against the public option but, now the Whitehouse has concrete proof of their duplicity. The only ones they’re protecting are their pimps in the insurance industry. The Whitehouse should send each of them a copy of this poll along with a note instructing them to vote for the public option or prepare to be hammered by the likes of moveon.org and people like Jane for ignoring what the people want. Tell Snowe to get lost!

A trigger that’s designed not to be trigger is by definition not a trigger.

According to the blog, Baucus’ rules for a tax credit is sufficient to obviate Snowe’s trigger rules. You’re assuming this is true. I’ve not seen the evidence in this blog.

They are compensated very handsomely not to hear the peasants.

x

Ezra Klein is nicer but still agrees

Actually, as an orphan since about 9 years of age I suspect she’s been on public health coverage (SSI) since then.

Health care is a right?

This trigger is so full of loopholes that it would not even make a good macrame hammock.

“An individual would be deemed to have affordable access if either of two conditions is met. First, two or more plans are offered with premiums – the cost of which does not exceed a specified percentage of the individual‘s adjusted gross income (AGI), after deducting any available tax credit or employer subsidy from the cost of such premium. The percentage contribution shall range from 3 percent of AGI at 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, to 13 percent at 300 percent and above.”

So 5% of the people living in places like NYC, SF or other urban areas can be expected to pay more than 13% of their income [even after that tax credit]…and those plans may be offering next to nothing in terms of coverage. But if they exist…the individual will be expected to use them. If they don’r5t they will be fined…and still not receive coverage unless they “pay up”.

“Assessment of affordability shall follow submission of plan premiums filed one year in advance of the first day of each policy year, and should a state be found to not meet the 95% threshold, plans would be permitted to submit of any revised premium filings, after which a second assessment of affordability shall be performed. If, after that second assessment, a state still be deemed as not meeting the affordability standard, the safety net plan shall be offered within that state, and shall be available at the pending open season enrollment.”

Now I don’t know how they will be able to determine actual affordability in advance in a state…it would seem that the proof of unaffordability would depend on the COL in that area, individual issues like job loss for a family that are not predictable, etc. Note that the “trigger” also only applies in a State-By-State assessment…and presumably the coverage by a public option would only extend to that 5% who couldn’t afford it. The rest would still be required to use the Co-Ops or the private insurers.

“This amendment establishes a non-profit government corporation through which a “safety net” plan would be provided in any state in which affordable coverage was not available in the Exchange to at least 95% of state residents.”

It’s a safety net…not an option, that Snowe is offering.

What if we used the same logic for widows and kids using SSI…that the program would only be triggered if more than 5% of married women or children lose the breadwinning covered SSI-paying spouse. Don’t worry…it’s only 5% of the population that are suffering in bleak poverty…no need to trigger a public option.

In a humane, modern society it must be.

I don’t exactly understand why you wouldn’t go to the trouble first of making the Rs and any allied conservative Ds actually filibuster. Make them read the phonebook.

A self-evident right. Illness, injury and disease are recognized as the greatest impediment to the obtaining of happiness and the enjoyment of life.

“No one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

~ John Locke

That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

~Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted unanimously by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776 and written by George Mason, is:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

~The United States Declaration of Independence

Thus the pursuit of the means to live a life without illness or suffering is an inherent right endowed by the Creator. States exist to further the pursuit of those objectives…not to impede them.

Even in a pre-modern society:
“…among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…”

From the Mark

Beginning in 2013, tax credits would be available on a sliding scale basis for individuals and families between 134-300 percent of FPL to help offset the cost of private health insurance premiums. Beginning in 2014, the credits are also available to individuals and families between 100-133 percent of FPL. However, individuals subject to a five-year waiting period under Medicaid or CHIP are eligible for the tax credit beginning in 2013. The credits would be based on the percentage of income the cost of premiums represents, rising from three percent of income for those at 100 percent of poverty to 13 percent of income for those at 300 percent of poverty. Individuals between 300-400 percent of FPL would be eligible for a premium credit based on capping an individual‘s share of the premium at a flat 13 percent of income. For purposes of calculating household size, illegal immigrants will not be included in FPL. Liability for premiums would be capped at 13 percent of income for the purchase of a silver plan. The share of premium enrollees pay would be held constant over time.

Zactly. And note that immediately following “Happiness” the Declaration continues: ” — That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men…”

It’s a right and the government’s purpose is to secure that right.

The way I read the Snowe “trigger” is that the “public option” is not one…it only covers the 5% or more that would fall beyond the criteria she establishes. No one else would be eligible. Thus it’s not an option at all. Those above the criteria, after their tax credits, could not opt for the cheaper publicly offered plan. If less than 5% of the public didn’t qualify within the “Co-Op” model, there would be no “non-profit government corporation” created to generate an affordable plan for them. Screw those poor people. Let them go bankrupt, according to Oly Snowe.

Furthermore, this is a state-by-state trigger.

Plus the insurers get a “mulligan”…if they don’t meet the criteria, they get a chance to go back and create some sort of high deductable, high co-pay low-benefit “clunker” plan that does fit the limits.

What horseshit! Could the American people–the people of Maine, especially, let their elected officials pull off a scam like this? Holy mackerel, this is stinky!

13% of AGI AFFORDABLE??????? She’s off her f**k’n rocker!

Your are SO RIGHT!! Please tell the world!

Thank you. Please go viral with this.