The Rain in Maine Falls Mainly on Obama's Public Option

The Maine Sisters, Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, are raining on Obama's public option. First Snowe:

Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine said there is “no way” a health-care overhaul that includes a public option can pass the Senate.

Snowe, one of six negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee, said that to gain more Republican support, President Barack Obama should explicitly drop the idea of a federally backed insurance program to compete with private insurers such as Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna Inc.

Obama and Democrats in Congress are trying to extend coverage to the 46.3 million uninsured Americans and curb health-care costs that account for about 18 percent of the U.S. economy. The president began a push this week to win Republican support and ease some Democratic uncertainty about spending $900 billion over a decade to overhaul a health-care system that he says is at a “breaking point.”

“I’ve urged the president to take the public option off the table,” Snowe said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” program. “It’s universally opposed by Republicans,” Snowe said.

Snowe is a key member of the Senate finance committee, the last of five congressional panels to complete health-care legislation. Committee chairman, Montana Democrat Max Baucus, has led the only effort to reach a bipartisan agreement on health-care legislation and has struggled for months to attract Republican backing.

Democratic leaders said today they need Republican support for a bill. “We need their help,” Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and member of the Senate leadership, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“We’d like to have it,” Durbin said. “If they do not, we are still going forward.”

And you'll destroy the Dem party if you do, Senator Durbin.

And from Collins:

A moderate Republican who has previously broken with her party to support President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill said Sunday that she does not support the idea of using a so called “trigger” on the public health insurance option as part of health care reform legislation.

Asked on CNN’s State of the Union if the use of the trigger would make inclusion of the public option more acceptable, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, unequivocally replied “no.”

“The problem with trigger is it just delays the public option,” Collins told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, “because the people who are going to be making the determination about whether the market is competitive enough, want the public option.”

In other words, you can't trust them.

These two are well known as moderates (or sometimes "RINOs") who have been known to be the votes that turns a partisan bill into a "bi-partisan" bill, and many feared one or both would roll over on health care and stick us with this dog.

However, neither apparently wants to be the only Republican voting for it, and I guess two is not enough company to make it work either.

That's good news for the rest of us.