The Plum Line has the video, Watch Lieberman Endorse Medicare Buy-In Three Months Ago. Now he says that the inclusion of the very proposal he formerly claimed to support is why Lieberman opposes the health care bill.
It seems increasingly the case that the core of Lieberman's ever-shifting objections to health care reform is summed up in this classic song:
It would be nice if our Senate could transcend the Marx Brothers. I am not feeling hopeful about that right now.
I suspect you are still confusing good or bad policy ideas with good or bad re-election ideas.
The Senate is NOT trying to make the perfect healthcare bill at all. If the bill is even any good, it will be accidental and a side show to the process itself. What is happening is that one half is trying to get enough pet ideas into it to pay off enough Senators to vote for it. Meanwhile the other half is trying to make sure that it doesn’t have enough buy-in to get the votes it needs. (look at the Mary Ladreau situation – she’s actually PROUD of that!) ALL with an eye toward that Senator’s next election and what he/she will be able to claim in asking for votes.
If they really wanted to make some positive healthcare strides, there are a handful of things that they could do RIGHT NOW that they refuse to even discuss. (tort reform and allowing insurance to cross state lines, for two examples from many) It’s not about healthcare. It was never about healthcare. It was always about keeping Congressional power. I am utterly amazed that some people are still so distracted by the pretty lights that they can’t see this. There is nothing less productive than an evenly divided Senate.
I think that Lieberman is a complete tool of the Connecticut insurance establishment, and Harry Reid should go after him with anything he can. Lieberman has been a Democrat in name only since the 2000 election, and many would say before that as well. It’s time for him to stop using the Democrats’ slim majority in the Senate to have his cake and eat it too. If he’s going to filibuster with the Republican’s, he’s not doing the Democrats any good, and he should be stripped of leadership assignments. If he leaves the Democratic Caucus, then so be it.
Even if this healthcare bill is just “pretty lights,” those lights are often necessary to precipitate real change on major issues. The Civil Rights act of 1957 was a giant, if largely ineffective, step toward the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Healthcare is a purely political issue for Lieberman, and real statement about his ethical standards and moral leadership. Personally, I’m through giving him the benefit of the doubt.
The “pretty lights” are often necessary to precipitate real change in bug the population on my porch. Health care reform is going to zap Americans in much the same way.