Lieberman: I Stand With The Small Minority Of Americans Who Oppose Public Option

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The surfeit of polling data showing broad public support for the public option hasn’t swayed Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who’s joining conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans in staunch opposition. Check out this video from Paul Bass at the New Haven Independent.

His two key objections are:

  1. “If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it.”
  2. “My fear is…[health care providers] would end up getting levels of reimbursement from the public plan…comparable to what they get today from Medicaid.”

He should probably take a look at the work the relevant Senate committees are doing, though. The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee is contemplating a public option that finances itself (i.e. no public subsidy), and the likeliest outcome of the legislative process will be a public option that either exists on a level playing field with private insurers (and pays comparable rates for care), or a public option that pays Medicare like rates, or something in between.

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