Another Snowe Job

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Health Care: In the wake of a public outcry effectively killing the "public option," who comes along to try to revive socialistic health reform? The definitive Republican In Name Only — Sen. Olympia Snowe.

The leftist supporters of radical health care reform are so crazed about its growing unpopularity that last week one of them bit the pinky off of a senior citizen for disagreeing with him at a MoveOn.org rally in Southern California.

Republicans can rightly rejoice at seeing Americans practice assertive, effective citizenship. Angry crowds at this summer's town halls recognized the government-run "public option" that Democrats push is a grave threat to the best health care system in the world.

This alternative would feature artificially low premiums and other enticements that would suck away tens of millions of private insurers' customers and wreck the health insurance industry.

The funny thing is, liberal-leaning Republican Snowe of Maine seems to realize just how dangerous the public option is — even as she puts forward a plan that endorses it.

From taxes to moral issues, Snowe has long been a thorn in the GOP's side. Now, in trying to save the Democrats' radical health care revolution, Snowe is proposing a "trigger" version of the public option.

The health insurance industry would have several years to bring costs down (the false assumption being that they're the ones who have been keeping costs artificially high).

If they fail, which they certainly would under the added expenses that health care reform would impose, it would trigger the establishment of a government-run alternative coverage scheme.

Snowe's ploy comes as the president plans to call a joint session of Congress on Wednesday evening in what the establishment media have described as a "high risk, high reward" strategy.

It's actually highly insulting to try to scare Americans into a socialistic health revolution they have resoundingly rejected.

A CNN poll last week found that only one in four Americans want some version of Congress' government-centered health care proposals to become law. It's that unpopular.

The president obviously isn't listening to the vox populi, but neither is the Democrats' favorite GOP senator.

When someone who is as far left and as committed to ObamaCare as Sen. Russ Feingold is declares it to be dead, as the Wisconsin Democrat did last month, why would a Republican senator want to rescue it — along with Democrats' political fortunes?

The 80-plus-strong House Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus are demanding the public option be included in what comes to the floor. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned that a bill without the government option won't pass.

It sounds like Democrats, responding to their leftist base, will double down and try to get their radical transformation of our private-based medical system enacted, public opinion be damned.

If that's indeed what unfolds this week, will Snowe betray her party's principles and help Democrats put America on the road to socialized medicine?