So far the health-care debate has already added the manipulative euphemism “public option” to the political lexicon. The next additions appear to be two potential mechanisms of the federal health-care bill: a “trigger” and a “failsafe.” The trigger, as previously discussed, would be designed to bring a government-run health plan into being after a fictional “market competition” phase. The failsafe would be designed to yield automatic federal spending cuts and other policies to pay for the new plan if President Obama’s fabled savings from reforming Medicare and Medicaid do not materialize.

Two architects of the failsafe concept, Harvard’s David Cutler and Judy Feder of the Center for American Progress, explained it Thursday to reporters via conference call:

It could start as soon as 2015, they said, would have to be specific enough that the Congressional Budget Office could calculate its costs and could include reducing Medicare and Medicaid payments. It could also include changing tax policy and strengthening a public plan — one of the more controversial elements of the reforms Obama supports — to pressure the insurance industry to change its costs.

All this talk of triggers and failsafes makes the bill sound like a dangerous weapon.