Trigger Troubles—And Why the Senate Can’t Fix Them

By Jacob S. Hacker

Created 10/22/2009 - 1:54pm

As closed-door discussions continue in the Senate, the resilient bad idea of triggering the public plan is once again on the table. Advocates of the trigger cast it as a compromise that will attract the support of the small number of conservative Democrats who have expressed reservations about the public option, as well as Republican Olympia Snowe, who has proposed a trigger.

But to be a compromise between public-plan skeptics and the majority of senators who support a public plan because it is central to ensuring affordable coverage while limiting the budgetary costs of reform, a trigger must have some prospect of working—and a trigger inserted into the two Senate bills now being merged would not.