General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Well, I finally got to see the plans I qualify for on the federal exchange. [View all]pnwmom
(110,318 posts)Like Joe Lieberman's. So if we had kept it, the ACA wouldn't have passed.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/prescriptions/2009/10/did_lieberman_just_kill_the_public_option.html
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was formerly a Democrat but who is now an independent, announced today that "if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage." In other words, Lieberman will support a filibuster. "I can't see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company," Lieberman said.
One largely unspoken assumption behind Reid's quest to get an "opt out" version of the public option through the Senate is that he doesn't really need 60 votes for the health reform bill itself. He just needs 60 votes for the cloture motion prior to final passage. Once a filibuster is cut off, health reform can pass with 50 votes (the 51st being Vice President Joe Biden, president of the Senate). One reason Reid's gambit looked so promising as recently as yesterday was that Lieberman, despite his previously stated opposition to the health reform bill even without a public option (i.e., as passed by the Senate finance committee), had agreednot to support a filibuster against it. It now appears that Lieberman either changed his mind or was misunderstood.