By Mary Jo Dilling

As the President gets ready to address the joint session of Congress and the American people on September 9^th, the talking points from the Left have changed yet again.  All messages are now synchronized to suggest that a “trigger option” is on the table.  Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, after her meeting with President Obama, threatened that we had better take the public option now, because a triggered public option would be even tougher.  True to their usual game plan, the Liberals have been throwing everything at the wall and hope that some of it sticks.  But it looks like there are some cracks in the wall.  Rep. Steny Hoyer, (D-MD) and House Majority Leader, has indicated that he could be satisfied with a bill that leaves out a public option for health care.  On the other hand, Nancy Pelosi has made it abundantly clear that a bill without a public option will not pass in the House.  It would appear that the moderate and Blue Dog Democrats are showing a little defiance toward their leader.  Can this show of independence and regard for their constituents last more than twenty-four hours?  What will Pelosi do this time to bend their fingers back or even break their arms?  This seems anatomically impossible, though, because she has done it so many times that they must be out of arms to break.

If the President accepts this trigger option, which we should find out during his upcoming speech, the health care debate becomes even more convoluted.  If a health care bill passes that contains this trigger, the Liberals will eventually achieve their goal of total government control of health care.  The Liberals who are at least somewhat in touch with reality, realize they have a tough fight on their hands forcing a government-run option onto the public at this time.  But they know how to bide their time and wait for what they want.  To extend the trigger analogy a bit further, with a health care plan in place containing the trigger option, guns will be held to the heads of the insurance companies.  If they fail to create adequate competition within their industry, the government will pull the trigger.  But who in government will be the triggerman?  What will entail adequate competition?  Everything will hinge upon who is in charge.  Of course, that is up to the American people.

The American people bring me to my final question.  Would they be watchful if a trigger option were to be in place?  Issues are driven by a 24-hour news cycle.  We’ve seen how the Mainstream Media ignore anything derogatory or troublesome to Obama and his Administration.  FOX News and the internet are among the few effective sources of information available.  Issues come to the forefront, only to be replaced when the next crisis occurs.  It doesn’t even have to be a crisis, just what sells.  For example, Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009.  For the next several days there was little else on cable television news, including FOX News.  On the evening of June 26, 2009, the House Bill, HR 2454, Cap and Trade, passed with 219 ayes and 212 nays.  Even FOX News left us down there.  I spent part of that Friday evening watching the vote on C-Span.  Most likely, it would have passed anyway, because Nancy Pelosi had broken enough arms and made enough deals.  But it disappoints me that America was more interested in all the details of Jackson’s death than passage of a bill which places us one step closer to living with a sweeping Climate Control and Energy law which could destroy our economy.   I keep thinking of the “what ifs.”  What if enough people knew what was going on in the House that day and what it meant to their futures?  What if more people had contacted their Congressmen?   We will never know.

I do not know yet if the trigger option in the health care bills will come to be, or even if a final health care bill will pass this year, but I hope America will watch all of the coming legislation for whose finger is on the trigger.