One of the arguments offered by the opponents of the public option goes something like this. Private insurers can not compete with the government run insurance. Once all private insurers go out of business, people will not have a choice.
Empirically, we know that public option will not result in all the private insurers going out of business. The people making this argument could be misguided in thinking that the private insurance will go out of business that easily. They could be duplicitous, knowing fully well that they are not going to go out of business, but would still like to play on a genuine fear that people have of losing choice. To assuage the people who are misguided, and to counter the duplicitous arguments, we could make a counter trigger proposal instead of the trigger that Senator Snowe likes.
If the number of private insurance companies goes below three in any state, the government will subsidize the survival of the remaining two private insurance companies. This will come with strings attached, in that there will be price controls in such a way that they can't charge more that x% of what is charged in the public option for equivalent coverage. The trigger for government subsidies is when the number of insurance companies go below three, perhaps with a market share criteria included.
This trigger is offered only if the public option is available from day one, and public option itself is not triggered. This can be offered in addition to the now famous opt-out offer. I had proposed this before the idea took off in this diary http://www.dailykos.com/...
If we go by US post office, FedEx, UPS example, private insurance companies going out of business is unlikely. Even in UK and Canada private insurance companies still exist.
If a trigger has to be included to make the public option real, I would much rather it be this trigger than the one that is currently being considered. Hopefully, this will help us bring into the fold people that are genuinely concerned about not having choice.