Although the White House has tried to characterize “triggers” as a “compromise” that could bring everyone on board, the fact is that Rahm Emanuel has been pushing them since January. It’s isn’t a compromise — it’s what the White House has wanted all along. Can’t get enough votes in the Senate? The answer is triggers. [...]

It is amazing to me that some reporters honestly believe Obama would “prefer a strong public option.” All the evidence points to the contrary. For months Obama has been trying to down play the public option. His advisers have been running around saying anything (triggers or co-ops) would be acceptable substitutes even after the CBO [...]

The fact that the White House worked hand in hand with the Finance Committee to craft a bill, which doesn’t have a public option? Meaningless. Reports that they would have put a trigger in that bill but didn’t have the votes to get it through? More lies. The complete absence of any reporting saying that Obama has called a single Senator or member of Congress and urge them to vote for a public option? Well, that’s because he’s cleverly waiting until the last minute to fix it in conference.

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 [...]

Is the President fighting to kill the public option just to please Snowe? The fog is starting to clear, and we will soon know where Obama really stands. Reid claims to be one or two votes shy of a public option that includes an opt-out. Will he let the silent filibuster to continue? Little noticed is how [...]

Schadenfreude is a German word meaning deriving pleasure from others’ misfortunes. It is the emotion that best describes what I feel watching the Republican Party candidate Dede Scozzafava and Conservatives Party candidate Doug Hoffman tear each other apart in the special election to fill the House seat in NY-23. An insufficiently conservative Republican is facing [...]

Talking Points Memo is reporting that Obama is now actively working to kill the public option. Multiple sources tell TPMDC that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is very close to rounding up 60 members in support of a public option with an opt out clause, and are continuing to push skeptical members. But they also [...]

For a Republican, Olympia Snowe seems to have a real disdain for states’ rights when it comes to health care reform. At every turn she has been trying to take power away from the states and give it to the federal government. She has been one of the biggest supporters of the “national plans” strongly [...]

I think the single greatest political disaster in store for Democrats over the issue of health care reform is not about policy, mandates, or taxes; it is about time. Americans for the most part do not know that they will be forced to wait for three years before reform really starts. A recent Kaiser Family [...]

Sam Stein and Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post say that Harry Reid is working the phone because he’s “just one or two Senate votes shy of having a filibuster-proof majority in favor of a public option for health insurance coverage with a provision allowing states to opt-out.” “One or two votes shy?” That means [...]