Republican Senator Olympia Snowe really thinks the health insurance industry deserves another chance to behave. This is why Snowe supports the trigger. Just how strongly does Snowe feel about giving the insurance companies another chance? She thinks it is so important that she wants to waste $100 billion of your tax payer money on this second chance for large, for-profit health insurance corporations.

The CBO says a strong public option would save around $110 billion. Snowe has repeatedly stated that she is completely against this serious cost saver. Snowe admits the CBO has scored her trigger as only saving between $10-$15 billion. (That is assuming that the trigger is not neutered some time in the next five years, which is the most likely outcome.) Snowe is demanding we waste $100 billion of your tax dollars by giving the private health insurance companies another chance to get their act together.

To gain her support, Snowe is insisting that the country waste $100 billion for the explicit purpose of protecting the private health insurance industry from public competition. That money could be used to reduce the deficit, make health insurance more affordable for millions of Americans, and/or reduce taxes. Snowe thinks protecting the health insurance companies is more important than providing people with more affordable health insurance or reducing the national debt.

Keep in mind that the senator demanding the nation waste $100 billion only for the purpose of protecting the nearly worthless private health insurance industry is considered to be one of the most “reasonable” and “moderate” Republicans in Washington. Dropping the $100 billion randomly from a few thousand hot air balloons is a more reasonable and moderate use of the money. With my proposal, at least a few regular Americans who could really use some help might get some of the money, instead of every single dollar of it being funneled directly to the health insurance corporations.