Screw Joe Lieberman!
Is anyone else as sick as I am of all these guys with gold-plated government insurance plans telling everyone else they can’t have insurance? Joe Lieberman doesn’t mind spending money for an unnecessary war in Iraq but actually helping people right here in the U.S. is just too expensive. Never mind that reform is supposed to deficit-neutral. I seriously hope that if people like Joe Lieberman, the Senate ConservaDems and the Blue Dogs prevent health insurance reform that we push really hard to strip Congress of their health insurance. Let them try to buy insurance on the open market.
Yesterday, appearing on CNN, Lieberman said comprehensive health care reform would be nice, but when it comes to coverage to the tens of millions of Americans with no insurance, he’d like to push the issue off — until some undetermined point in the future.
“[W]e’re in a recession. People are very worried about their jobs, about the economic future. They’ve watched us add to the debt of this country…. Let’s talk about how to change the way health care is delivered. Let’s talk about protecting people from not getting insurance because of preexisting illness. Let’s take off the caps on the amount of insurance coverage you can get over the years. Let’s pay for preventive services for health from the first dollar. Here’s the tough one. We morally, every one of us, would like to cover every American with health insurance. But that’s where you spend most of the $1 trillion plus, a little less that is estimated, the estimate said this health care plan will cost.
“And I’m afraid we’ve got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy’s out of recession. There’s no reason we have to do it all now, but we do have to get started. And I think the place to start is cost health delivery reform and insurance market reforms.”
Tags: CT-Sen, Health Care Reform, Joe Lieberman
Who listens to Lieberman?
Let’s talk about things that we should cut as a result of the recession. How about we just take a few months off from paying Social Security? Would that work for Joe?
How about we cut off the $2.5B in aid to Israel? I am sure that Joe would be happy to cut that. We are in a recession, after all.
Unfortunately Lieberman is one of the 60 we have to keep in line to overcome the filibuster. Of course the MSM is going to listen to Lieberman – what he’s saying fits into the new shiny ball they’re chasing which is Obama is trying to do too much.
Good questions, LG. What is Lieberman willing to cut to help out the uninsured?
Its not only the right wing zealot Leiberman, but the so called Liberal Patrick Murphy in Bucks County having so little information on health care he said the following. When single payer advocates asked the liberal Murphy why he wasnt supporting single payer, Murphy replied, “because I do not want our doctors and nurses to be employees of the goverment”? These looney tunes are making policy for us? Leiberman is a neo con republican who should have been tossed out of the democrat party years ago. I will never forgive Al Gore for wanting this man to be VP. It’s like McCain picking Palin!
The wing nuts don’t understand. We can not improve the economy until we deal with health care. Are companies are still going to run to single payer nations, or countries with no health care at all. These democrats are using any excuse under the sun, playing to the dumbed down sheep who are being purposely misled, misinformed and left to the republicans who are setting the discussion with lies and distortions. We need another national party, dump these two corporate owned parties.
Goodness, can our elected officials be any stupider? Did someone explain to Murphy that we already have a single payer system – it’s called Medicare. Having our elected officials so ignorant is part of the problem. They need to be able to explain the plan to the people and not pass on misinformation.
Unfortunately anon2, it takes a lot of money to get elected. Non-wealthy, non-corporate candidates will have a much harder time getting elected. Perhaps we need to take over at local and state levels and push ideas upwards. States are the incubators of ideas.
I read someplace yesterday that Alec Baldwin may be thinking of taking on Joe L for this Senate seat.
But it can’t be a surprise that Lieberman is in the tank for the status quo. He seems to be on a glidepath to leave the Senate with his corporatist cred intact.
All Obama has to do is get the Dems to pass a bill, why the delay?
Keep blaming everyone else but the reality is Obama has failed at being a leader.
Lieberman is not the problem.
Mike Protack
Wrong – Harry Reid has failed at being a leader. Let’s be clear – there is one and only one obstacle in the way, and his name is Max Baucus. Every other committee passed their version of the bill long ago. To be sure, President Obama has not leaned hard enough on Reid, but there is a limit as to how far a president can push the Senate Majority leader. They are roughly equal in power, at least on paper. The chain of scorn falls thus: to Obama, for not pressing Reid directly; but greater yet on Reid, for allowing Baucus to keep the bill in committee. And greater still on Baucus, for serving his corporate masters by letting Republicans completely destroy the bill; but the greatest scorn of all falls on Chuck Grassley, for openly lying about the bill and seeking to destroy it while pretending to have a sincere interest in working on it.
All Obama has to do is get the Dems to pass a bill, why the delay?
The delay, genius, is that Congress is on vacation. You might want to occasionally consult with someone who is actually in government.
That and what X Stryker said.
The real delay is that the Senate bill stinks and can’t get 50 votes. The house tri-committee bill may even be worse. If the Democrats did pass those bills it would be the biggest devastation of their party since they opposed the 14th amendment and allied with the Copperheads.
Sensible Democrats aren’t going to commit political suicide for a bill that they don’t believe in. Pleasing the far left is not as important as finding a sensible solution. Reid leaned on Baucus but he found that Max has some backbone. Reid has no power over him. He can’t remove him. He needs his vote and the moderate votes that he could bring.
If Senator Baucus actually comes up with a bill that works, he will be the savior of your party not a villain. You should be kissing his ring.