{Originally posted at my blog Senate Guru.}
This is what Nebraska's Democratic Senator, Ben Nelson, said on Sunday morning regarding the public option and a possible "trigger" mechanism:
Well I think he [Obama] has to say that if there’s going to be a public option, it has to be subject to a trigger. In other words, if somehow the private market doesn’t respond the way that it’s supposed to, then it would trigger a public option or a government-run option. But only as a fail-safe backstop to the process.
When I say trigger, out here in Nebraska and the midwest, 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.
(Much more below the fold.)
Put aside the trigger talk for a moment and take a step back. Ben Nelson is acknowledging that a public option would address a lack of competition in the health insurance industry. The only problem is that, while public option supporters (including a majority of Americans) recognize that the need for the kind of competition that a public option would provide was triggered a loooong time ago, Nelson simply thinks that we haven't reached that point yet.
I don't know at what point exactly Ben Nelson would set the trigger to go off, but he is very clearly recognizing that a public option would solve this pesky lack-of-competition problem. As for when it ought to be triggered (be it years down the line or right friggin' now), Nelson need only listen his own home-state supporter: