Senator Joe Lieberman. Public Domain, U.S. Government
The health care reform deal announced last week by Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) contained no real public option but it still ended up being an acceptable package for many liberals. Most important was a Medicare buy-in program which would allow those over the age of 55 the gain coverage under the federal program.
Today liberals learned that even the Medicare buy-in must be sacrificed at the altar of the moderate as Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has said he will vote against the bill with the Medicare expansion included. Without Lieberman's vote the Democrats lack the 60 votes they need to end debate and have a final vote on the bill.
The obstructionism of Lieberman should not be a major surprise for Democrats as he has demonstrated his willingness to single-handily kill reform before. Once the Democratic leadership decided against reconciliation the whittling down of the bill became somewhat inevitable given the need to obtain all 60 votes in the caucus. Lieberman is getting all the attention as the last holdout but in reality other moderates before him helped to kill other progressive parts of the bill like the public option.
The real question now becomes whether progressives will go along with yet another compromise of the bill. Many liberals were already disappointed with the loss of a single-payer system, which was then followed by the loss of a strong public option, which was then followed by the loss of any public option at all. Now progressives are being asked to give up what they bargained for in exchange for the loss of the public option. In the interview Senator Sherod Brown (D-OH) suggests he is still open to voting for the bill but other progressive Senators like Bernie Sanders (I-VT) may not feel the same.
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Comments
LIEBERMAN OBSTRUCTS? Are you kidding? Medicare currently has $38 trillion in unfunded obligations over the next decade, with the hospital fund projected to be bankrupt by 2016. And that nasty Joe Lieberman, well, he somehow thinks it would be bad policy to allow people aged 55-64 to buy into Medicare, with the government subsidizing their purchases.
When people discuss how to deal with the long-range problems faced by Social Security, one alternative which is often floated is to raise the retirement age to 68.....I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about lowering the eligibility age to, say, 55 as a solution to the problem.
Democrats are losing control of this entire debate because of insane proposals like this one: trying to bring another 50 million people into an entitlement program, and then trying to convince the public that it will reduce costs. If Joe Lieberman is obstructing idiotic ideas like this one, then God Bless him.
These leftists will blame anyone they can except the right one.
This was supposed to have been on Obama's desk by the end of August. Then Thanksgiving. Now Christmas. Looks like the blame on the teabaggers is old and used huh?
To the left. To the left right left. To the left . To the left right left.
Sooooo, they found a dem with a conscience and they don't know what to do now....Oh yeah, he's an 'Independent'...that explains it.
Hope he sticks with it, I'm not holding my breath. The powers that be have alot of taxpayers money to bribe these 'holdouts' with. The fact that the 'taxpayers' don't want this ridiculous bill matters not at all...
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