Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who said last week that he’d join the GOP in filibustering a public health insurance option on the Senate floor, restated that threat on Face the Nation this morning.
“I feel so strongly about the creation of another government health insurance entitlement,” he said. “The government going into the health insurance business — I think it’s such a mistake that I would use the power I have as a single senator to stop a final vote.”
The Connecticut senator also said that it’s not him who’s obstructing health care reform, but supporters of the public option.
“I’d say to the people who are all of a sudden making the public option, a government health insurance company, the litmus test here, they’re stopping us from getting something done,” Lieberman said.
All of a sudden if you’re not for this government health insurance company, you’re against health care reform. I’d say to them, ‘Don’t stop us from getting something good and important done for the American people.’
Lieberman also claimed that a public option would raise taxes and health insurance premiums while ballooning debt.
“The public option, I think, was raised in the last year by people who really wanna have a government-controlled health insurance system,” he said. “That’s their right. I think they’re wrong.”
Here’s the video.
