Them Dems.

The Nation, December 1, 2009
Waffling Democrats' Healthcare Hypocrisy
By Peter Dreier

In the battle over healthcare reform, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the former Democrat turned independent, and Democratic Senators Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln and Kent Conrad have at least two things in common. They all oppose a public option in healthcare reform, but each is nevertheless a fervent advocate of socialized medicine. How can Senate watchers make sense of this ideological contradiction?

Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid must get all six of these senators (or one renegade Republican) on board to pass a healthcare reform bill with the sixty votes needed to stop a filibuster. But although each of them recently voted to allow the Senate to debate the measure, they all say they oppose the public option President Obama supports. "I've already alerted the leader," said Lincoln, "and I'm promising my colleagues that I'm prepared to vote against moving to the next stage of consideration as long as a government-run public option is included."

"I don't believe Americans want a government-run healthcare system," Landrieu said in October. "I'm not for a government-run, national, taxpayer-subsidized plan, and never will be." "People who support a public option," Lieberman, who has also threatened a filibuster, recently said on CBS's Face the Nation, "really want to have a government-controlled health insurance system. That's their right. I think they're wrong."

read more