Here's an unwelcome dose of reality after Saturday night's vote in the House: Jack Reed saying on CBS' Face the Nation Sunday that he believes Olympia Snowe's trigger is still alive in the Senate.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Do you think, at this point, Senator Reed, that there are the votes in the Senate to pass the bill that the House passed? Because it does include the so-called public option--this government health care insurance program that would be run by the government. Do you think it’s-- that’s going to pass the Senate?
SENATOR JACK REED (D-Rhodes Island, Senate Armed Services Committee): I believe we’re going to pass health care reform. I believe we must do this because it’s essential to not just the quality of life here, but our economic success in the future. Senator Reid-- Harry Reid has introduced a public option. There’s strong support there. But we are far from the-- the end of the debate in the Senate. It will take time. It will be careful, thorough, and deliberate. I hope that a public option is part of the final bill.
BOB SCHIEFFER: But, candidly, right now, you don’t have the votes in the Senate for that. Am I not correct in saying that?
SENATOR JACK REED: I think there’s a discussion about, as Senator Snowe suggested, a trigger to the public option. Senator Reid has suggested a opt-out by the states. There is a debate, or an active debate, about how the public option might come about. But, overwhelming, sixty percent of the American public want a public option. And I think we should be listening to them as much as listening to ourselves.
Reed wasn't endorsing Snowe's trigger proposal, but he did seem to characterize it as a form of the public option, saying it was part of the "debate...about how the public option might come about."
Lest he or any other Senator be unclear: a trigger is not a public option. It never has been, and it never will be. If a senator supports a trigger, then that senator opposes the public option. It's as simple as that. There is no middle-ground.
Senators should remember that if they vote for health care reform legislation without the public option, they will be casting a vote to require all Americans to buy health insurance from the very same companies who created the system that this legislation aims to reform.
If they don't realize what a political disaster that would be for them, then they should get their heads examined.