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From Meet the Press, when asked about whether President Obama is going to be able to get health care reform passed or not and about the "vast right wing conspiracy" Clinton faced and whether President Obama is facing similar opposition, former President Clinton decides to sing the praises of Olympia Snowe's horrid trigger option.

CLINTON: Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was, because America's changed demographically, but it's as virulent as it was. I mean, they're saying things about him--you know, it's like when they accused me of murder and all that stuff they did. He--but it's not really good for the Republicans and the country, what's going on now. I mean, they may be hurting President Obama. They can take his numbers down, they can run his opposition up. But fundamentally, he and his team have a positive agenda for America. Their agenda seems to be wanting him to fail, and that's not a prescription for a good America. We actually need a credible debate about what's the right balance between continuing to expand the economy through stimulus and beginning to move back to fiscal balance. We need a credible debate about what's the best way to get to universal coverage.

Now, the one Republican who's come up with a good idea is Senator Snowe. She deserves a lot of credit for saying when we did this Medicare prescription drug bill, instead of giving the government the power to negotiate for lower prices we gave the drug companies a chance to offer them, but we held the power in reserve. And if there was any state in America where there was no competition, you could do it. So let's do that for health care. That's a good idea. That's, that's the kind of debate the country needs, and I hope that the Republicans will come forward with it. These...

How many ways can I find to say... "Hell no!"? This is not a good idea and the trigger is meant to be something that is never pulled and instead kill any real reform of the insurance industry, just as it has never been pulled with the overpriced Medicare Part D drug plan that was nothing but a giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry, as slinkerwink over at FDL points out here- Why The “Trigger” Is A Con Job Pulled On Us By Lobbyists.

Gee, I hope not. But normal people are reluctant to call someone a liar, so liars always get the benefit of the doubt. Here's what Michael Steele claims the Democrats are trying to do to seniors:

President Obama and Congressional Democrats are promoting a government-run health care experiment that will cut over $500 billion from Medicare to be used to pay for their plan. Medicare should not be raided to pay for another entitlement.

Even though, oddly enough, it's not true:

On the contrary, the bill includes several key provisions that improve Medicare benefits for seniors, including the following:

Phases in completely filling in the “donut hole” in the Medicare prescription drug benefit (where drug costs are not reimbursed at certain levels), potentially savings seniors thousands of dollars a year.

Eliminates co-payments and deductibles for preventive services under Medicare.

Limits cost-sharing requirements in Medicare Advantage plans to the amount charged for the same services in traditional Medicare coverage.

Improves the low-income subsidy programs in Medicare, such as by increasing asset limits for programs that help Medicare beneficiaries pay premiums and cost-sharing.

Let me remind them what the Republicans have tried to do to the popular senior citizen healthcare program through the years.

In the 1960s, they said things like this:

Ronald Reagan: “[I]f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” [1961]

George H.W. Bush: Described Medicare in 1964 as “socialized medicine.” [1964]

Barry Goldwater: “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.”

Bob Dole: In 1996, while running for the Presidency, Dole openly bragged that he was one of 12 House members who voted against creating Medicare in 1965. “I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare . . . because we knew it wouldn’t work in 1965.” [1965]

From Think Progress:

Over the years, Republicans proposed numerous schemes to slash funding or privatize Medicare. Most notably, in 1995, under the leadership of then House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Republicans proposed cutting 14% from projected Medicare spending over seven years and forcing millions of elderly recipients into managed health care programs or HMOs. The cuts were to ensure that Medicare is “going to wither on the vine,” Gingrich explained. Similarly, during the 2008 Presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) proposed cutting $1.3 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid.

Now, ask yourself this question: Have you seen any sign whatsoever that the Republicans have mellowed in the past six months? Of course not. Watch what they do, not what they say.

Nice work from Jed at Daily KOS TV. Fox News didn't bother to let their viewers know that Senator Kennedy voted against cloture and the final bill as well.

h/t The Political Carnival

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Rachel Maddow examines how one former disgraced Bush official, Thomas Scully is influencing the health care debate.

MADDOW: During the Bush years, there were quite a few administration officials who were forced to leave their jobs under dark clouds. There was Claude Allen, for example, President Bush's domestic policy adviser who left after shoplifting a whole bunch of stuff from Target.

There was Bush's aides czar, Randall Tobias, famous for telling foreign countries they couldn't get any American money to fight AIDS unless they cracked down on hookers. Mr. Tobias resigned, of course, after his name turned up on the client list of the D.C. madame.

There was David Safivian, the head of procurement at the White House, who was busted in the Jack Abramoff scandal. There was Steven Griles, number two guy at Interior Department who was also busted in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

Actually, if I keep listing how many Bush administration officials were busted in the Abramoff scandal, we're going to be here a long time. But suffice to say, there were a lot of dark clouds over a lot of Bush administration resignations. One of them was President Bush's administrator of Medicare, a man named Thomas Scully.

Mr. Scully's career in government took a turn for the infamous after he ordered another government official to withhold information from Congress. That information was: how much President Bush's Medicare prescription drug benefit would cost. Publicly, the Bush administration was saying it would cost no more than $400 billion. Privately, they knew it was more like $600 billion. But Thomas Scully made sure that Congress never knew that.

A Bush administration investigation found that Mr. Scully threatened to fire the actuary who came up with the real cost figures if that actuary gave those real cost numbers to Congress. And while he was doing that, Mr. Scully was also busy getting himself a special waiver that would allow him to get a job as a health industry lobbyist as soon as he left government.

So, think about this for a second. He helped that prescription bill get passed by hiding its true costs, then he immediately went to work for companies who stood to make a mint from the fact that he got that bill passed. It's nice work, if you can get it, right?

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