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No, Olympia Snowe didn’t come up with the idea for triggers.
Knox points to this post at The Faster Times, written by Matthew Spieler. According to Spieler’s bio:
Matthew Spieler is a former policy analyst for Congressional Quarterly, where he covered health care, education, labor, and veterans’ affairs. A graduate of The George Washington University, he has also worked as a reporter for CQ covering the Senate floor.
He seems to be working off the same notes that BooMan was in response to an email I sent out, taking them at face value rather than fact checking them. And with the same ensuing public face plant. In the email, I mentioned that Rahm Emanuel had been fighting for triggers ever since Obama took office. Spieler responds:
Rahm Emanuel has not been pushing a trigger “ever since he took office.” This was Olympia Snowe’s idea, and Emanuel saw it as the most politically viable option. You can disagree with him, or be angry with him, but the trigger is not part of his long-planned secret plot help the insurance industry. It’s just not.
Olympia Snowe’s idea? Really?
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post has reported that “[A] source close to the administration, who has been in contact with the White House on health care matters, said that Emanuel has been “floating” the trigger compromise since January.”
And on June 2, Sam wrote an article entitled Obama, Senate Dems Consider Public Health Care Option With A Trigger:
The Obama administration and Senate Democrats are debating a health care reform outline that will insist upon a public option for insurance but leave open the possibility for it to be kicked in via triggers.
Multiple Democratic sources tell the Huffington Post that the White House and key members of the Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committees are in the process of hammering out key principles on health care reform — with a meeting scheduled at the West Wing this afternoon. One of the components will be music to progressive ears: that any bill includes an option publicly run health insurance coverage. But it also comes with a caveat that could engender opposition from that very same constituency.
A trigger would pave the way for public option to come into place only after certain market conditions are met — mainly if private insurance companies are unable to achieve various metrics for coverage within a certain time frame. The proposal would placate many of the private health care actors who consider a public plan the first step towards a single-payer system. Progressives, however, view it as reform in name and not substance.
“This is really, obviously, a mechanism to kill the public plan,” said one progressive health care reform advocate. “We will see what comes out, but the fact that they are debating this is problematic.”
Mentioned in the article: Carper, Mikulski, Schumer, Wyden and Baucus. Not mentioned: Olympia Snowe.
Then on July 7, the Wall Street Journal reported: “On Monday, Mr. Emanuel said the trigger mechanism would also accomplish the White House’s goals. Under this scenario, a public plan would kick in under certain circumstances when competition was judged to be lacking.” No mention of Olympia Snowe.
The first mention of Snowe’s support for a trigger that I saw came in this September 2 Atlantic post by Marc Ambinder:
Senior White House officials, in conversations with reporters today, are floating the idea that President Obama is secretly negotiating with Sen. Olympia Snowe over a health care compromise that would phase in a government-funded health care alternative if private insurance companies fail to meet quality and cost benchmarks over a certain period of the time.
Ambinder wrote “for months, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has been pushing the idea of a “trigger” internally.” Snowe subsequently offered up a trigger amendment on September 21 in the Senate Finance Committee, but pulled it before it came up for a vote.
The next time someone reaches out and taps you with a “special” tip like this, Matthew, ask yourself why they had to get all the way to you before finding someone who would willingly print this. You just might find that everyone else knew it was bullshit.
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Jane and team have you seen Eve’s clips of the Free Clinic in Kansas. Incredible. Eve puts faces on the uninsured. This one should be spread far and wide.
She is doing an incredible service. Hell maybe she is getting paid is she is she deserves it.
““On Monday, Mr. Emanuel said the trigger mechanism would also accomplish the White House’s goals. Under this scenario, a public plan would kick in under certain circumstances when competition was judged to be lacking.”
“kick in under certain circumstances when competition was judged to be lacking”
Christ All Mighty how much evidence do they need to confirm that “competiton was judged to be lacking”
Do we need to send an airplane ticket to Rahm for the free clinic in Kansas? Where is the next one going to be? Should we send Lieberman, Rahm , Snowe, Nelson etc free airplane tickets.
Why do they refuse to acknowledge the reality of the uninsured. As Olympia Snowe said in one of the Senate finance committeed hearings on health care we have all ready witnessed “decades of inaction” DECADES.
Why the fuck do they want to give the Insurance companies another chance to do the right thing. They have had “decades”
Jane have you been to one of the Free Clinics? Wondering if you could put out an invite to Rahm, Traitor Joe etc when you are on MSNBC or elsewhere. Have they been directly invited?
Matthew is apparently unfamiliar with the phrase, “Used, like tissue paper.”
He was pwned.
Frankly the defensive posture here is even more outrageous than accepting that Triggers are Rahms very own brain-fart. But, no – we are being urged to accept that Rahm, and Obama are taking their marching orders from Snowe?!
Fucking, unfuckingbelievable!
I gave formulating a response to this “former policy analyst” my best shot, but came no where near to smacking him and his lame post around as well as Jane has.
Jane, I stand reminded that challenging you on issues and strategy is fine, but pissing you off most certainly is not.
Thanks for sourcing this. I’ve been asking for months why there is no attribution to Rahm for anything.
For several years at at public town hall meetings Congressman Pete Stark has made thinly veiled remarks about Rahm running the strategy sessions for House Democratic Leadership (capitalized). Each time the Dems began to grow a spine Rahm could be counted on to negotiate away the strength.
Congrats, Rahm got D majorities elected. Curses, he doesn’t know how to use them.
Who is close to Rahm to know where he gets HIS ideas?
So Rahm has been pulling for the trigger for some time? Obviously, being fairly new around here, I didn’t know that.
And I thought that Rahm just very eagerly bent over for it…
Wonder if they gave credit to Snowe thinking that letting her look like the hero would sweeten the deal for her to come on board. The appearance of bipartisanship was more important to them than good legislation.
Rahm is energetic, inventive and exacts revenge more fervently than Shrub. But in legislation of this magnitude, which will stamp the forehead of the Democratic Party for a generation, it seems likely that all major issues lead directly to Obama.
Triggers, as described by these politicians and their journo cutouts, all have locks on them, to prevent the public from pulling them so as to meet their legitimate needs at the expense of corporations who have been enriching themselves by not doing so.
I suggest that Mr. Spieler has been gespielt. Now who would want to do that in order to target Ms. Hamsher’s energetic efforts to hold Democratic feet to the health care fire?
Heh, maybe triggers were actually the idea of David Gergan :).
That’s a quote from David Gergan on ABC’s This Week last year while Obama was still a “President Elect”. Interstingly enough, Rahm Emanual was also on this this broadcast, but I’m sure that was just a coinsidence, right? (not sure of the date, couldn’t find the date of the broadcast.)
Like every preceding admin, the Obama WH endeavors to create implausible deniability. Sure it’s bullshit but it’s their story and they’re sticking to it.
My disdain for Rahm Emanuel knows no bounds.
ht – punaise
Rahm running away from Triggers like he ran away from NAFTA? Can’t Rahm evertake public credit for a win:)?
Sweet take down Jane. Now lets see if Mat is man enough to admit being wrong?
Seconded.
The man is also trying to f*ck with state politics, too. I really want his ass kicked out of the White House right now, before he f*cks up every damned layer of the Democratic Party.
Maybe his negotiations with Blago will come back and bite him in the rear.
The date of that broadcast was Nov. 9, 2008. I find it.. “funny” that on the very program that This Week interviews the incoming Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanual, that the term triggers for health care happens to be on that show.
I find the timing of this all very interesting.
Rahm starts floating triggers “at the end of January.” What else was happening at the end of January, a mere 10 days post inauguration?
Tom Daschle’s nomination to the head of HHS is spectacularly blowing up regarding the un-oaid tax issue.
Rahm was spreading chum on the waters if you ask me.
Plus, don’t forget; Jim Messina, former Baucus aide and health care lobbyist was on Obama’s transition team. He was responsible for the vetting screw up of Daschle, and je’s now Deputy Chief of staff; works for Rahm
The WH is totally responsible for driving the triggers idea, mandate in and no PO. It really can’t be any other way.
Book Salon up at the Mothership with Stuart Weisberg’s Barney Frank: The Story of America’s Only Left-Handed, Gay, Jewish Congressman hosted by Lane Hudson
I don’t see from the Spieler article where he has any more information than I do. I disagree with the conclusions he comes to, but it’s a difference of interpretation of the reported data. And that is in part because multiple conclusions can be drawn from leaks depending on the reason one assumes that the information was leaked.
I don’t think anyone tapped him on the shoulder any more than they tapped me on the shoulder. It’s the analysis not the back channels that are different. At least until one of these sources goes on the record with more than a hint as to what is going on, it is very easy to interpret circumstantial evidence incorrectly.
Nonetheless, I see a major failing in leadership by trying too literally to avoid the failures of the Clinton administration.
Jane has been sourcing this for months. Unfortunately, this false narrative pushed by the Spieler and many others is widely accepted. There is certainly no shortage of Obama apologists willing to spin this B.S.
It does not matter if Rahm was the first to think about it or not. It is apparent that he is doing Obama’s bidding on this. At anytime Obama could have said that he wanted the public option in the bill with no trigger. He never has. His enorsement has always been indirect and milktoast. He has always said that it is a sliver of the reform plan. He has never ever ever ever fought for it. They have deals with Pharma and insurance that would be hurt by a public option. That is all they care about. This was just supposed to be a quick gimmick “historic” reform plan.
Tell your congressmen that they should pull the individual mandate if there is no public option(no trigger).
They are not trying to avoid the Clinton failures, they are building support with the insurance and Pharma for 2012. That is why the individual mandate has never been questioned, no negotiation of prices and annual caps on benefits. They should get a lot of tv ads in 2012.
So I went back over to the Spieler post at The Faster Times to see if there were other comments, only to find that the one I wrote last night has been deleted.
The diary I put up at Seminal last night was entirely based on the comment I left at The Faster Times.
So, Matthew Spieler reveals not only that he’s less knowledgeable and less intelligent than Jane, but that he also can’t take being challenged and can’t address issues substantively either.
Here’s the comment I just now left over there. Wonder if he’ll delete this one too:
Massimo Tartaglia, yeehaa!
Good on ya K-Town!
Every night I rush home from work to see which news show has asked Matthew Spieler to offer relevant political commentary and every night I find none.
Hmmm. Maybe this clown is on the Cartoon Network?
Triggers, as described by these politicians and their journo cutouts, all have locks on them, to prevent the public from pulling them so as to meet their legitimate needs at the expense of corporations who have been enriching themselves by not doing so.
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Isn’t Reid’s big surprise that the judgement to pull the trigger will be given over to Homeland Security and Lieberman?
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they are building support with the insurance and Pharma for 2012.
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AGREED
Yes, that is the allegation, but who knows whether it is true or not. I can’t pretend to mindread the White House staff.
Good for you. After all, he is trying to assert special knowledge about White House actions that he doesn’t really have.
Good find. I agree with you, that’s probably no coincidence that triggers were mentioned on the same broadcast as Rahm, just after the election. That might be the best evidence I’ve seen yet.