Lieberman Campaign Lies on Healthcare Reform
Wed, 07/01/2009 - 19:10 | 
Connecticut Man1
Via Paul Bass of the New Haven Independent, Joe Lieberman has taken his strongest stance yet in support of doing nothing honest in healthcare reform:
U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman has a bipartisan group of senators ready to help pass health care reform — minus a government-run insurance plan.
During a New Haven stop to support overall reform, Connecticut’s independent fourth-term senator gave his strongest statement to date opposing Democrats’ and President Obama’s call for a “public option” health care plan.
The problem with his faux idea of bipartisan solutions in opposition to a public option? This is something that he had campaigned on in the past:
Jed at DKosTV catches another quote from Joe Lieberman in October 2006, where he seems to have promised specific support for his version of a public option:
"I've been working on health insurance reform for more than a dozen years. ... I have offered a comprehensive program. Small business health insurance reform, plus something I call MediKids to cover all the children in America on a sliding fee basis up until the age of 25.
"MediChoice to allow anybody in our country to buy into a national insurance pool like the health insurance pool that we federal employees and Members of Congress have. Medical malpractice reform.
"It will cover 95% of those who are not covered now, and it will reduce the pressure on rising costs for all the millions of others."
"MediChoice" seems to be a Lieberman health care proposal going back to his 2004 presidential run, when he described it in a questionnaire as a public option, but one only available to certain types of workers:
"My plan will also enable all Americans who don't have access to affordable, conventional health insurance to buy into new MediChoice health insurance pools, modeled on the health care program for federal employees. The MediChoice pools will be open to all workers who currently fall through insurance cracks. This includes self-employed, part-time, seasonal and temporary workers. It also will give stay-at-home moms, early retirees over 55 and workers in small companies with less than 50 employees access to affordable health benefits."
Lieberman touted his own "public option" back when he was running in (and losing) Democratic primaries - first for President, then for Senate. But Lieberman now?
"One is I'm fearful that at a time when we're spending much too much money here in Washington, going much too deeply in debt that a public option on health care, no matter how you structure it, will end up costing the taxpayers money.
"Secondly, we don't need it. There's more than 350 companies, maybe more than that, selling health insurance. There's going to be a lot of competition for health insurance once universal health insurance comes."
Earlier [from MLN]: "Lieberman's 15-Year Record of Killing Health Care Reform"
Which begs the question of why Lieberman makes campaign promises and then breaks them over and over again... Follow the money:
Hey! Joe, where ya goin' with that healthcare lobbyist's money in your hand?
Nice ad. Joe needs a nice warm cup of shut the buck up.
From Kos and quoting Jane Hamsher:
More Lieberman lies from 2006:
Lieberman devoted a conference call with reporters to an issue that his main rival in the U.S. Senate race, Democratic nominee Ned Lamont, has highlighted in recent days.
"I have long supported the goal of universal health care," Lieberman told reporters. "Ned Lamont can talk about it. I've been doing something about it all the time I've been here.
What exactly has Lieberman been doing in his time in the Senate? Fighting reform, of course.
Lieberman, who voted for every war supplemental and every bank bailout that he ever encountered without batting an eyelash about the expense, suddenly says that a public plan is "a cost we can't take on."
Take this post down
Submitted by ruascott on Thu, 10/29/2009 - 10:40.becuase it is full of lies. Joe never campaigned or supported a public option. He supported using the Fed employee exchange model, which is what is in the bills that he supports.
These are two different things, and if you're too ignorant to understand that you shouldn't be commenting on policy in a serious manner.