It’s all about Joe Lieberman these days in the struggle to get health care reform passed, and that is exactly how Joe wants it. His latest play, as everyone who follows politics knows by now, was to announce that he wants the Medicare buy-in proposal out, and that he would stand with Republicans to kill the entire bill, via filibuster, if he did not get his way.
The Medicare buy-in plan, of course, was the compromise that was crafted to replace the public option, which Joe Lieberman wanted out of the bill, or he would stand with Republicans to kill the entire bill, via filibuster, if he did not get his way.
Lieberman was a leading proponent of expanding Medicare coverage in the 2000 presidential campaign, and he continued to support it right up until the Gang of Ten agreed to trade the public option for the Medicare buy-in idea, and progressives in the Democratic caucus made it clear they were enthusiastic about the trade-off, and didn’t think it was a loss at all.
That was a serious tactical error. They should have pretended to hate the idea. If they had, Lieberman would now be insisting that he would join a Republican filibuster unless they put it in.
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