Search

Hartford (WTNH) – Chief Capitol Correspondent Mark Davis sat down with Senator Joe Lieberman, Monday, to talk about health care.

As his entrance with Maine Senator Susan Collins into his Subcommittee hearing on the Fort Hood Shootings showed, on Thursday, Sen. Lieberman is a media magnet in Washington.

Now he walks nearly alone among his colleagues in the Democratic caucus squarely in the middle of the seminal issue of the first year of the Obama Presidency, health care, because his is the vote that could cause it to crash.

Davis: So, is there anything in this new health care plan that would cause you to change your vote?

Lieberman: “Well, ahh, no and I’d say that’s both good and bad, which is to say that there’s a lot in what Senator Reid has put forth that I have good, positive first reactions to because I’m for health care reform. But unfortunately the bad part is that the bill still adds on some new government responsibilities that I don’t think we can afford and I’m afraid will end up costing the tax payers a lot of money like the so called public option, so that part, I’m still against.”

The Majority Leader in the Senate Senator Harry Reid has said he is confident of achieving the necessary votes.

Lieberman: “Harry Reid knows that he has sixty votes, I believe, to move to open the debate on the health care bill and I’m going to vote to open the debate because I want to debate it and I want us to pass something. But there’s more than me who won’t vote to end a filibuster on this bill, by more than me I mean, more than me in the Senate Democratic Caucus. I’m not the only one who will not, at this point, vote to end debate on this bill.”

Sen. Lieberman had just come from a luncheon caucus with Reid devoted entirely to discussion of the new version of the health care bill.

Lieberman: “When Senator Reid says he’s confident he’ll have sixty votes, I think he knows and has pretty much said to some of us that he’ll have to change the bill as he presented it. I hope I can convince my friends here who support the public option that there’s so much good we can accomplish with this bill and the public option is both so risky and so unnecessary to all the other good things that health care reform can do; that they should drop it and wait for another day.”
Davis: “If you do end up being the vote that holds all this up, causes this to crash, is it possible you lose your chairmanship?”
Lieberman: “I don’t know and I’m not thinking that way, I have a confidence, Mark, that in the end I’m not going to be the only person refusing to let this bill out of the Senate if it still has a government run insurance company. Again, I’m not talking about Republicans I’m talking about members of the Democratic Caucus.”
Davis: “Do you enjoy bucking the Democratic Leadership?”
Lieberman: “No, I don’t enjoy it. Matter of fact, I hope and literally pray that this can be worked out so that we can have a good strong health care/health insurance reform bill without a public option that I can vote for enthusiastically and I will.”
Davis: “What about 2012, are you done with the Democratic Party in Connecticut? The Quinnipiac University Poll, I think most people said you were closer to being a Republican; most people said they thought you ought to run as an Independent.”
Lieberman: “Well, I’m keeping all my options open about how I run in 2012 until something otherwise is said I assume, and I hope every will, that I am running for re-election in 2012.”

That’s about as close to saying he’s planning to run again in 2012 as anyone has heard so far. But as for what party? Apparently that’s yet to be determined.