Reform Rx – The Republican Trigger Reality Show

Let’s ask ourselves: Why concede to what they reject in their hearts?

From CNN State of the Union

“There’s lots of things we could agree to on a bipartisan basis,” Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, “the public option isn’t one of them. The trigger option simply kicks the can down the road.”

Under the trigger proposal, a public option would become available later, should the private insurance industry not meet certain benchmarks on coverage and cost.

“If the Democrats embrace the public option,” Pawlenty also told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, “even in the form of the trigger, they’re going to shoot themselves in the foot.”

From FOX News Sunday

Wallace: “Let me bring (former) Speaker Gingrich into this conversation. First of all, I'd be curious to hear your take on what both of your Democratic colleagues here on the panel are saying. But also, the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit bill, which President Bush signed, had a trigger in it, a trigger that's never been pulled. If President Obama now supports a trigger, you know, that would give private insurance companies, let's say, four years to provide an affordable insurance policy, would that be more acceptable to Republicans?”

Gingrich: “I don't think so. I mean, the 2003 bill had a trigger which said specifically only non-governmental entities could be developed. It did not have a trigger that led to government, because if you say to the government bureaucracy, ‘As long as you find it has failed, you get to build a brand-new bureaucracy,’ you have a guarantee the trigger's going to go into effect.”