Joe Lieberman Considers Killing Health Care Reform, Obama's Entire First Term Agenda, Dem Majorities In Both Chambers, Etc.

If you're interested in health care reform, and only have time today to get really really pissed off at one Congressional development, check out this bit of "Joementum" sweeping through the news: "Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) told reporters today that he would in fact filibuster any health care bill he doesn't agree with--and right now, he doesn't agree with the public option proposal making its way through the Senate." THINKING VERY VIOLENT THOUGHTS.

b-b-b-b-but uh uh uh uh I hab c-c-c-c-c-concewns, wah wah wah, I hab p-p-p-pwoblems:

"I told Senator Reid that I'm strongly inclined--i haven't totally decided, but I'm strongly inclined--to vote to proceed to the health care debate, even though I don't support the bill that he's bringing together because it's important that we start the debate on health care reform because I want to vote for health care reform this year. But I also told him that if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage. Therefore I will try to stop the passage of the bill."

In other words, he -- the necessary #60 for Democrats in a cloture vote -- would side with Republicans to filibuster a motion that would bring the final bill to an up-or-down, simple majority vote. Of course he would do this. Now, to piss you off further:

One of Lieberman's main objections to the health care bill is that it includes a public option, which he describes as a burden on taxpayers.

"I think a lot of people may think that the public option is free. It's not. It's going to cost the taxpayers and people who have health insurance now, and if it doesn't it's going to add terribly to the national debt...there's so much in this health reform legislation that is so good, that I think they're just putting an unnecessary burden on top of it by creating another Washington-based entitlement program."

You should be feeling a sensation right now akin to gallons of toxic synthetic petrochemicals scorching permanent holes through your duodenum and brain. Because Joe Lieberman is threatening to derail this whole thing -- maybe STILL for revenge over his 2006 primary loss, but more likely just for basic corporate campaign donations -- over a lie. The public option would not be a government-funded entitlement for free health care; it would a self-sufficient program financed by premiums. He knows this, what with it being super easy to understand and all.

As we wrote last year, "It’s like two quarter-pound stools of alien space shit crashed into a toxic waste dumpster in Stamford, Connecticut, fucked, and out came their mutilated, blood-soaked carcass of a baby rat-child, Senator Joseph Lieberman."

 Lieberman: Sure, I'd Filibuster A Health Care Reform Bill With A Public Option [TPM]