According to the Las Vegas Sun, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that he thought Snowe’s trigger proposal was, a “pretty doggone good idea.”

I think the whole idea of a trigger is inherently flawed. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich did a good job explaining that Washington is full of lobbyists whose job it is to make sure things like triggers never get pulled. Snowe’s trigger (specifically, a worthless trigger) is designed just that way. And, even if pulled, the single, state-based public options it would create are likely to lack the size or power to have an effect.

Reid does have some rather unkind words for the idea of co-ops which he thinks is worse than Snowe’s trigger proposal. Reid said of co-ops:

It would be better than nothing but it’s nothing I’m going to jump for joy with.

I think that signs point to the fact that the idea of co-ops is starting to lose favor (a very critical report from the CBO might have something to do with that). Even the father of the co-ops idea, Sen. Kent Conrad, is now admitting that they are, as currently written, too restricted, and would not have the ability to fully compete with private insurance.