Sounds like Rahm made a little trip over to the Senate to see his ol’ pal Harry Reid.

Take a look at THIS:Insurer Denies Woman’s Claim: She Should Have Known That Her Bleeding Breast Was Not An ‘Emergency’

That is why the insurance company at first approved the claim and then reversed itself. /s

Congress can always adjust the criteria by which the trigger is activated. The insurance companies can tweak their performance to just barely meet the criteria to avoid the trigger.

And suppose the trigger is activated. Will the government have spent the dollars, effort, & time to design a high quality public option – when it is something that nobody knows will ever be activated? So either the govt spends a lot of our dollars & effort creating a public option, assuming the insurance companies aren’t going to come through for the American people, or they wait to see how the insurance companies do. And then if a public option is quickly needed, government will need months to get the public option active. The GOP will be able to say – see, I told you so, government is too slow & inefficient…

It never ceases to amaze me how Congressional Democrats elect
ineffective/incompetent/corporatist wusses like Reid and Daschle as their leaders.
Someone more conspiracy-minded would say that it’s a feature, not a bug.

Supporting the trigger idea is an affront to the American people. It is infinitely worse than opposing the public option. If a member of Congress honestly opposes the public option for philosophical reasons or because she thinks that it would be an unworkable policy, she should make her argument and let her constituents decide. The voters will eventually judge her for her stance.

A member of Congress doesn’t have to believe any of the things you claim he must believe to support a public option with triggers. All he really has to believe is that the trigger will never be pulled. There’s a lot of reason to believe that it won’t.

Harry Reid’s affront makes my middle finger trigger to attention.

I happen to have a few trigger ideas we can all get on board ;

“if a person is out of work and an insurance agency does not want to pick up their insurance free of charge that triggers their public option and a public option for anyone who wants it

if a person cannot afford health care that also triggers their public option and a public option for anyone else who wants it

if a health insurance company denies a claim for whatever reason, the fees collected from that person are re-clainmed and it triggers their public option along with anyone else who is afraid the same thing will happen to them

if insurance rescinds someone, all the fees collected from that customer are collected and it triggers a public option, and anyone afraid of the same action from their insurance can have their public option

there are a bunch of other “triggers” that work but really, we can say something like;

“ya, of course triggers are fine, as long as it includes “whenever a person wants to buy into medicare that counts as a trigger”

and

“triggers are effective immediatly and at will according to the comsumer”

their heads will explode

Harry is pretty “dogone” big douchebag

After a couple of beers Livingston didn’t see any problem with triggers , right Dick. OOOOO, I’m sorry

These scumbags are in a real bind. They had to keep up the front of “supporting a public option” because thats what the public wants. Their little plan of killing the PO over the recess didnt work out. Now they are stuck pretending to “support” a PO and its coming down to the wire. Everything that can be done to point out how they are ignoring the will of the people MUST be done. We have to keep harping on that until they are voted out.

Harry Reid is a hairy reed, that bends and bows in the direction of whatever prevailing wind comes along.

Just listen to Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders on this web site. Therein lies the true meaning of a progressive solution to our health problems.

Get ready, drop drawers, bend over, spread ‘em.

I would be happy to see Nevada elect a Republican for Harry’s seat in 2010.

Book Salon up at the Mothership with David Swanson’s Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union hosted by Glenn Greenwald

You can call me a cynic or a troll, but I believe that obama deliberately went about this whole health care dance incorrectly because he never really intended to lead in passing health care reform. The way he did it would indicate that he isn’t very bright if he was being honest about doing as he promised. I, however, believe that he is very bright, so I think that he did this deliberately: no real plan developed, letting the repugs get a clear field to attack the whole idea for months, making closed door deals, allowing his people actively undercut the whole idea of real reform, fill in more if you want to.

We gotta clone him, it’s our only hope.

Personally, I think Obama is as corrupt as any Chicago poll ever has been. In fact, I think he makes the Daleys look like choirboys.

Obviously, he was lying through his teeth about everything he pretended to stand for during the campaign.

I agree that one perspective to attack insurers with is that their practices amount to a fraud on consumers. The system is so rigged, it’s hard to find a comparison in the sale of other goods and services. Usurious credit card practices are one analogy. Exorbitant penalty and use fees and 29.9% rates are common, as is changing the terms of credit with little notice.

Other analogies: Permitting a life insurer to cancel a policy because an insured failed to disclose that they skin dived, when the insured died in a commercial airline crash. Permitting an auto insurer to rescind a policy simply because the insured makes a claim; that’s bad enough, but it’s not a reason, it’s a method for executives to make their bonus targets. Or permitting a car manufacturer to cancel a warranty because the driver installed an aftermarket exhaust, when the warranty problem is that the car’s brakes failed. Again, the rescission is unrelated to the corporate goal being sought, as is true of the 1400 plus reasons health insurers have not to pay claims.

Consumer protection laws prohibit some of those practices precisely because they are frauds on the consumer. Insurance abuse is also a public health hazard and a national financial nightmare. It costs billions annually, costs that are externalized onto individuals and governments. Not just pocketbooks, but through visceral pain and sometimes death.

With all that, Congress manfully restrains itself and refuses to regulate these nationwide abuses. Insurers often hold regional monopolies – permitted via a Congressional exemption from anti-trust laws. They won’t change profitable practices simply because consumers want something else. In part, that’s because consumers have no market choice in the matter owing to the insurer’s monopoly.

By definition, “market forces” cannot change the status quo until that monopoly is broken. That requires withdrawing insurers’ anti-trust exemption, more tightly regulating abusive practices on a national scale, and by meeting the insurance needs of tens of millions now without insurance or insurance so fragile it can’t be used.

Someone more conspiracy-minded would say that it’s a feature, not a bug

or rational

Right on, Jane. It’s an insult and a lie.

Pelosi is convincing when she says there will be no trigger. If she stays strong Reid and the WH will have to accept at least a weakass public option.

When close to 80% of America wants a public option, and Harry and the rest of the politicians in DC want to protect the 1% who get rich from us being sick it’s not a stretch to think we’ll see another “sea-change” in politics next year, and it’s not going to be one that will favor the Democratic party.

Reid is the Senatorial version of a Concern Troll, and needs to be banished, like any troll.

with the insurance monopolists having the same extortive power as OPEC,and a corporate-owned government coercing the citizenry to pay these extortive costs via an individual mandate sans public option,this becomes the exact definition of a mob protection racket.Buy the insurance protection or fines,attached wages and imprisonment shall be the consequences.This is so not about Harry Reid. It’s about systemic corruption and a president who used the public option to take the oxygen out of single-payer momentum.Obviously no intelligent person takes the trigger seriously;it’s merely a political escape clause to thwart accountability.I believe Medicare Part D has a trigger so Pharma monopolists wouldn’t abuse the protectionism that shielded them from global competitors.The trigger is a scam being imposed by a political system that has become nothing more than a criminal enterprise.

The Trigger the Dems are about to create is on a fully loaded gun, pointing at the Democratic Party’s head. They’ll praise it to the heavens. Progressives should call it Russian Roulette with all chambers full. Watch the 2010 elections for the display of the “Corpse Party”. The good news will be we can wait for the fund raising letters from the DNC imploring us to fund the retaking of the House. “Just give us the House, Senate & Presidency,” says Harry.

I agree. Triggers are phony and those who support them have little integrity.

Only if Obama picks a PO over a trigger. Soon, we will hear how we must pass anything with a trigger to save Obama’s presidency.