Public Option with Opt-Out Clause Not a Silver Bullet for Snowe

ABC News' Teddy Davis reports: Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, told ABC's Robin Roberts on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday that she has "concerns" about allowing states to opt into a government insurance option without first giving the marketplace an opportunity to perform under new consumer protections. "I have concerns about that because that could be another way of opting into having a public option plan all across the country," said Snowe. "I would prefer to let the private sector to work through these reforms that we are going to require of them and with the amount of tax credits and subsidies and the exchange that is going to leverage competition and offer choices, that we can make the marketplace perform." "If not, I have recommended having a safety net, a fallback, of a public option to kick in immediately if affordable choices aren't available to people in any given area of the country," she added. "That may be a resolution to this problem." "There are going to be a lot of market reforms and a lot of prohibitions against practices that the industry has engaged in historically," she continued. "Those practices will come to an end and they are going to have to live up to a certain standard. If they don't, then you could have the public option kick in immediatelty." Snowe's words are being closely scrutinized on the public option because the White House views her support as essential to getting to the 60 votes needed in the Senate. Without her backing, Obama advisers worry that the president will be at risk of losing the votes of conservative Democratic senators who want to back a proposal which has a modicum of Republican support. In recent days, moderate Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware has been quietly promoting the idea of allowing states to decide for themselves whether to create their own government insurance plans or join forces to provide coverage in collaboration with neighboring states. Other Democrats have proposed taking Carper's proposal a step further, creating a national government insurance option which states could choose to take part in. Some prominent progressives like John Podesta, the head of the liberal Center for American Progress, have spoken favorably of Carper's proposal as representing a compromise between Snowe's trigger proposal and immediate nationwide enactment of a robust public option. Snowe's interview on "Good Morning America" suggests, however, that a trigger proposal may still be more likely to pick up her support than a public option with an opt-out clause for states.

Click HERE for ABC's George Stephanopoulos on why Snowe may now be Democrats' "best frenemy."