White House Denies Pushing Trigger Option, Dem Groups Concur

[ProSense]

Sam Stein

White House Denies Pushing Trigger Option, Dem Groups Concur

The White House, along with several progressive groups and high-ranking Democrats, is pushing back against reports that the administration is advancing a compromise proposal in which a public option would only be triggered by certain economic conditions.

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And yet, groups and individuals who communicate regularly with the administration on health care matters insist that they have not been pushed recently to get comfortable with the trigger. And so did the White House itself.

"The story about us reaching out to groups is not accurate," an administration official told the Huffington Post.

"I don't buy that and I'm not much into speculation," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, (I-Vt.). "It makes good media copy but no one knows what is going to happen... Even so, there has already been a major compromise in that we are not on verge of not doing a Medicare-for-all system, which is what many of us want."

"We have not gotten that call," said AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale. (The major union conglomerate deals with the administration regularly.) "And we will continue to do what we always do -- fight for what is best for working families -- and that includes having a robust public option that will break the stranglehold of the insurance companies and lower costs by making them compete."