Senator Lieberman In His Own Words

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has been absorbing a lot of criticism in the media and the blogosphere for his comments last week that he may have no choice but to oppose the Senate Democratic leadership’s health reform legislation if it includes a government-run health plan option.

There have been so many people trying to interpret the Senator’s statement and speculating as to his motivations that I was glad to see that Senator Lieberman took it upon himself to write an op-ed in the Hartford Courant explaining his decision.  I was pleased to see the Senator, in spelling out his opposition to the government plan option, cite the cost-shifting factor that has received too little attention:

“A new public option will likely increase premiums for the 170 million Americans who already have private insurance, and let’s not forget the warning of the Congressional Budget Office: that the federal government will assume the financial risk that the premiums charged in a given year may not cover all of the public plan’s costs.”

Senator Lieberman also explained that he’s not against health reform, but rather he supports reform that will truly address the greatest needs of our healthcare system.

“We need to focus on what is most important in this debate. We can all agree on health care delivery reforms that will make our system much more cost-effective, on health insurance market reforms that will make insurance more affordable and more accessible for millions of Americans, and on reaching out to the millions of Americans who qualify for existing government programs like Medicaid yet are not enrolled.”

Some want to paint Joe Lieberman as an obstructionist, but I think this op-ed makes it clear that he’s trying to point the way toward bipartisan, centrist health reform.