Republican Pulls Plug on 'Trigger' Option

Democrats' health insurance public option, already on life support, died this weekend.

Olympia Snowe, the Maine Republican senator who proposed a form of the public plan and even negotiated with the White House on including her idea in President Obama's reform, said on Face the Nation Sunday that the idea is off the table in a key Senate committee.

The development is significant because Snowe's proposal of a "trigger option" was seen as a compromise for President Obama. The Snowe plan included a public option that would trigger in particular markets only if insurance market reforms weren't adequately working to cover most of the uninsured.

The public-option idea became a symbol of what's wrong with the Democrats' plan. Liberal Democrats in Congress say it's a necessary component of any reform. Opponents cast it as a government takeover of health insurance, which is stirring an emotional debate across the country. It continued to be targeted in opposition TV ads Sunday.

Snowe and five other senators are trying to work out a bipartisan reform bill to be introduced in the Senate Finance Committee. As an alternative to a public plan, the bill being offered by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus would push for nonprofit insurance cooperatives to compete with private insurers.