GOPideas... ideas done right

Olympia Snowe has floated the idea of a “trigger” option that would result in the creation of a “public option” if insurance costs do not decrease. Many Republicans and conservatives are appalled at the notion of even entertaining a public option because they view it as a Trojan horse to government-run health care. However, Republicans should not only accept a trigger option, but embrace it … and expand it.

Triggers are effective in distilling the debate and enforcing intellectual honesty. When politicians from either party promise pie-in-the-sky solutions that defy logic (increasing spending while cutting taxes), triggers are an efficient method to ensure that the logic upon which the policy changes were advocated holds up under scrutiny. Thus, triggers provide the accountability that is so often lacking in politics and policy. This accountability is both fair and reasonable because participants in the marketplace (or society) are provided advance signals to change practices and can make those changes with (near) perfect information. So, in the context of health care, either prices can be driven down by insurers or a public option is triggered. For those truly against a public option, this aligns incentives: if you do not wish for a public option, then ensure that the triggers are not met.

So, when the Obama administration makes it public that what they really want is a trigger option in order to “keep insurance companies honest,” Republicans should eagerly accept his entrée, and then offer the following triggers:

• Acknowledging that climate change is a global crisis, the United States is willing to abide by cuts in carbon emissions, provided that responsibility is borne equally by all nations. The trigger: if any nation refuses to agree to cuts, the US automatically withdraws from any discussion and removes any caps placed on carbon.
• Agree that policy should be based on scientific fact and study. Specifically, measure sea level, ice caps, snow packs, and droughts. The trigger: if any of those metrics show that the stated impacts of climate change are either nonexistent or reverses from the inexorable march to environmental Armageddon postulated by lefties, all carbon restrictions are listed.
• Agree with the administration that the long term cost curve of government health programs needs to be bended downward. The trigger: if current reforms lead to an increase in spending, agree that health spending will be frozen and capped in the federal budget for ten years --- thus ensuring that the financial goals set forth for health care reform are met.

As demonstrated, triggers are great methods for minority parties to take popular, common sense positions that would be supported under any administration and attach them as triggers to policy choices that are hyperpartisan. This has the benefit of ensuring that the proposed policy has the intended effect – or (at the least), the policy is ended before it does significant damage to the alleged beneficiaries.

Ensuring politicians are forced to provide the change they promised --- now that’s change I can believe in.