Speaker Pelosi Is Right About the Trigger

Conn Carroll / September 25, 2009

Hill Tube has a video up of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) talking about the obunlic option “trigger” at yesterday’s news conference. The video does not appear to be embeddable, but here is a rough transcript:

A trigger is an excuse for not doing anything. But everybody’s open to listening to what people have to say. The point is made over and over again that for one reason or another the trigger was not effective in Medicare Part D. … I believe that the bill is the trigger. If anybody wants to … I don’t even want to talk about a trigger. When we’re ready I’ll tell you where we’re going to be.

First of all, Pelosi is correct when she says “for one reason or another the trigger was not effective in Medicare Part D.” Part D, the Medicare prescription drug program, was created under the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. One reason that the proposed trigger for “a public drug option” failed to get pulled was the huge response of private sector plans entering the program and deliver drugs to seniors at competitive and affordable prices, resulting in a dramatic decrease in the assumed annual premiums for prescription drug coverage. (more…)