Lieberman Will Join With Republicans To Filibuster Health Care Bill
Do you think Democrats have maybe come to regret trying to kick Lieberman out of the party in 2006?
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill.
Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid’s has said the Senate bill will.
“We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.”
Lieberman added that he’d vote against a public option plan “even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line.”
Lieberman is no champion of individualism, and individual responsibility on health care (as opposed to big, collective government programs) is the solution.
But even so, let’s hope Lieberman and others like him gum up the works enough to create gridlock.
Doing nothing is about the best conservatives can hope for on health care out of this Congress.
