Snowe's Trigger

Robert Reich, who sometimes lets ideology get in the way of analysis, doesn't like the idea. He explains the premise:

Her idea (evidently encouraged by Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff) is to hold off on any public option. Give the private insurance companies a period of time -- say, five years -- within which to make changes that extend coverage to more people and also drive down long-term costs. If those goals for coverage and cost aren't met by the end of the five-year grace period, kaboom: The public option is triggered -- which will force such changes on the insurance companies. The beauty of Snowe's proposal is that it seems to offer Blue Dogs a way out and liberal Democrats a way in. Nobody has to vote for or against a public option. The public option just happens automatically if its purposes -- wider coverage and lower costs -- aren't achieved. And the trigger idea seems so, well, centrist.

He then goes on to argue against it because "Washington is a vast cesspool of well-paid specialists who know how to stop anything resembling a "'trigger'" and because "any controversial proposal with some powerful support behind it that gets delayed -- for five years or three years or whenever -- is politically dead." I find both arguments unconvincing. Suzy Khimm has more details on what Snowe's trigger might look like. This is what legislating means: compromise.