Your Daily Dose of Health Care Reform Stupidity

Astonishingly, it looks like stupidity's got other things to focus on this Labor Day weekend, but there are still a few items. Here we have Giuliani declaring that without tort reform, Grandma's as good as dead. I'd ask if the man had thought it through, but we already know the answer is "no."

Sen. Ben Nelson's apparently feeling sufficient heat over his stupidity to incrementally shift his position - he's now blathering that the public option might not destroy reform if it's got a trigger attached. Just so long as it's not a hair-trigger, mind you. Because we wouldn't want to shoot the insurance companies down too soon, poor dears.

Too bad for him that Howard Dean knows that's a dumbfuck idea:

"That's a terrible idea," former Gov. Howard Dean has previously said of Nelson's plan. Insurance companies "will just change their behavior until the trigger runs out and go back to how they were."

Yup. And, as Rep. Weiner pointed out a few days ago, we've already got triggers in the existing bill - ten years' worth, in fact. We hardly need more.

Howard Dean on Faux News stood up and said enough with the triggers already: "The problem is it won't work. It doesn't add anything. If you're going to do that, just do the insurance reform," said Dean. "There's no point in spending $600 billion and giving it to the insurance industry. We know what they'll do with it. I'm hopeful he'll stick to his guns and we'll have the reform we were promised in the campaign."

Hear, hear.

For more on why triggers are such a dumbfuck idea, see here. Then, if you are one of Sen. Nelson's unfortunate constituents, explain to him that his shift in stance was very nice, but completely inadequate.

And can somebody please inform the White House that Chuck Grassley is definitely, totally, and completely fucking obviously not interested in negotiating on health care reform?

ThinkProgress attended the closed-door reception. Upon arriving at the venue, we were surprised to see a conference room that was marked as a fundraising reception room for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Grassley was not listed on the official invitation. Minutes later, Grassley arrived, where he joined his fellow colleagues McConnell and McCain. In his remarks, Grassley told the wealthy Republican activists that he was committed to fighting Obama’s health care plan.

How much more obvious does it need to get?