Sen. Joe Lieberman
reiterated in an interview with the Wall Street
Journal that he would be prepared to filibuster a health
care bill that included any sort of government plan.
"I'm going to be stubborn on this," Lieberman told the
WSJ. In follow up questions, he said that he would not
support any kind of a government plan, even the so-called
"trigger" option that would create such a plan if insurers did
not meet certain government targets.
Lieberman's position complicates Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid's efforts to obtain the 60 votes necessary to pass health
care legislation, though in and of itself it may not be enough to
block the bill's passage. Sen. Olympia Snowe has been a proponent
of a "trigger" option, and it's possible that Democrats could
afford to lose Lieberman if they can get her on board. And in the
interview, Lieberman still insists that they'll end up passing a
bill.
Yet even if Reid can get some sort of agreement in principle on a
compromise with Lieberman and other wobbly Democratic moderates,
there's no guarantee that it will make it through the Senate.
That's because now that the bill is on the floor, 60 votes are
required to make any changes, and Democratic Senators will be
under heavy pressure from liberal activists to not cave on the
government plan.
And this doesn't even take into account the dispute over abortion
language, and the fact that even after passing the Senate, the
bill would still have to be reconciled with the House version,
and then pass both chambers again.
