White House undermines public option; here is the countermove

For those of you who did not see it, watch the tape of Chuck Todd's report this morning. Todd reports (correctly) that White House aides are telling him that the trigger is preferable to the public option for this reason: If conservative states opt out under the public option, the poor in their states get no protection. OK, so here's the response:

Let’s pass a public option with an opt-out provision for states, PLUS a trigger so that if opted-out states fall short of reasonable standards, the public option will trigger in for them too.

If our goal is the best healthcare for the most people, my compromise is the best policy, right? Let states that want the public option have a program from day one, and if states opt out, then the public option should be triggered if those states fall below acceptable standards for health insurance.

The goal here, folks, at least for those of us who support healthcare reform, is to make healthcare better for everyone. The trigger alone is a license to legalize abuse across the nation, before a trigger is triggered, and as we know, if this happens, the insurers who have bought their influence in Washington will be back lobbying again to prevent any trigger from doing anything.

On the other hand, if we pass a public option with a state opt-out provision and add a trigger that sets minimum standards for states that do opt out, we have a national standard for everyone and true healthcare reform.

The good news, and it is good news, is that the White House is coming out with its true position of preferring the trigger over the public option the president says he supports. Better we know this clearly and wage the fight on this basis rather than the phony pretense that the president supports the public option when in truth he does not.

The bad news is, our climb remains high.

The real news is, let’s go for the true compromise that takes the best of all worlds. Let’s pass a nationwide public option now, allow states to opt out if they choose, and add a trigger that would establish a public option for the opted-out states if they fall short of acceptable standards.

And above all, let’s end this farce where the president says he supports the public option while he opposes it.

Time to put the cards on the table and wage the real fight for healthcare reform.