Are Senate centrists trying to broker a comeback for the so-called trigger option?
Two key conservative Democrats say they, along with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) haven’t given up hope.
“There’s a possibility that [triggers could make a comeback],” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE). “Right now, we don’t know what the actual version of the plan is, because it hasn’t come back from CBO…so I think when we get that back, we’ll take a look and see what the scoring is, and maybe figure out what chance that plan has to get enough votes. My expectation is that it probably doesn’t have enough to get 60 votes to get off the floor if it gets on the floor.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he has not asked the CBO to score a Snowe’s proposal–a move that caused her to all but write the trigger’s obituary. But centrists have been collaborating informally on efforts to pull the bill back in their direction, and today, the mood seems very different.
“[I]n the event that there’s not–that the reforms that we’ve put in place [don’t create competition and drive down costs], then there could potentially be a trigger or a fallback position,” Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) said this morning. “So that is kind of where [Olympia Snowe and I] are believing that we should reform the private market first, if the private market fails to reform, or refuses to reform, then there would be a fallback position.”
“I wouldn’t count it out,” Landrieu said. “I would not count it out.”
Late update: TPMDC interviewed Howard Dean earlier today. He weighed in on the centrists but also blasted a trigger public option.
“A trigger is a farce, that’s worthless,” Dean said.
–cb
