Why are the Republicans so afraid of the Power of the Market? Here’s (extremely conservative) Democrat Ben Nelson saying why he’d support a so-called “trigger” option that would, at some hypothetical point in the future, activate a public plan built into some version of the forthcoming insurance reform (emphasis added):
“If, somehow, the private market doesn’t respond the way that it’s supposed to [to other aspects of health care reform], then it would trigger a public option or a government-run option,” Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, “but only as a failsafe, backstop to the process. And when I say trigger … I don’t mean a hair trigger. I mean a true trigger – one that would only apply if there isn’t the kind of competition in the business that we believe there would be.”
Naturally, the Republicans are against even this idea (emphasis in original):
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Republicans aren’t likely to be receptive to public option “trigger,” which would kick into effect only if private insurers fail to meet benchmarks.
“I don’t think so,” Gingrich said on Fox News Sunday.
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Gov. Pawlenty says “all it does is delay the inevitable… if Republicans embrace the trigger, all they’re going to do is shoot themselves in the foot.”
I see. I see. What we have here is the old accidental truth seepage. If you’re in front of cameras, lying, for long enough…eventually and by accident some truth will get out of you. The GOP leadership in charge of messaging knows damned well that the mythical “market” of insurance won’t work at all. Healthcare is not and has never been a traditional market. It’s the nature of it. Thus, they know, KNOW that a trigger option, no matter how non-hair-trigger it might be will, in fact, be triggered. In one fell swoop such a trigger would show both the inability of the markets to solve every problem on this Earth, and (b) implying a role for government in, you know, anything not abortion or gun-ownership related.
Fuck the general welfare and well-being of The Republic. This would undermine the fundamental, guiding principles of the GOP: government isn’t part of the problem, government is the problem. And, just like with S-CHIP, such things cannot be allowed, no matter what the human cost.
Lemkin 