ACORNS? Nuts? Who Would Have Guessed?

"Trigger" Would Put Off Issue to 2013

WASHINGTON (Kaiser Health News) -- ....One alternative under serious consideration, strongly promoted by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, would hold the public plan in reserve, triggering it only if affordable insurance isn't made available to most Americans by the time the legislation is fully implemented in 2013.

[2013 falls after both the mid-term elections of 2010 and the next general election in 2012 and some observers say that such a plan would remove the controversial healthcare proposal from the political landscape in both elections.]

"If this trigger mechanism is what stands between getting a health reform plan and not getting one, it would be worth doing under those circumstances," said Paul Van de Water of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning Washington think tank.

Robert Moffit, a health policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the trigger is a bad idea that has little to do with reducing the number of uninsured and making coverage more affordable and much to do with government's effort to assert more control over health care financing and delivery.

"The reason why this whole thing is happening is that proponents of the public plan can't win this debate," Moffit said.