Lieberman ripped over health care

Hartford - Even as U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., indicated he might be ready to vote for a stripped-down version of the federal health care reform bill Tuesday, at least one member of Connecticut's congressional delegation was calling for his head.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, suggested Lieberman should be recalled from office for his efforts to block major portions of the proposed legislation now moving through the Senate.

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, didn't go as far as his colleague, but Courtney - a health care policy specialist in his state legislature days and a fervent supporter of the current effort to overhaul the health care system and cover more of the uninsured - was a lot more vocal about his dissatisfaction with Lieberman than he had been just weeks ago.

Lieberman's recent opposition to a public option to provide a competitive alternative to private insurance "doesn't reflect what's happening on the ground in Connecticut," Courtney said Monday in an appearance on MSNBC, noting the recently approved merger of two insurers in the state.

Asked Tuesday to respond to DeLauro's comments about Lieberman - the veteran Democratic congresswoman from New Haven said the senator was holding reform "hostage" and should be recalled - Courtney was more critical than he has been throughout months of debate over how to reform the health care system.

"Congressman Courtney believes that Senator Lieberman should keep faith with the people of Connecticut and his previously articulated positions to move real health care reform forward," said Brian Farber, the congressman's communications director.

Farber also pointed to a Nov. 12 Quinnipiac University poll, one repeatedly cited by Connecticut supporters of the health care reform package, which showed a 56-37 percent majority in favor of the public option.

In a statement released Tuesday, Lieberman said he could support aspects of the underlying Democratic reform legislation provided it does not expand Medicare coverage or include other provisions like the public option. The senator and his staff have refused repeated requests to discuss his views on health care and the legislation with The Day.

Obama meets with senators

In Washington, meanwhile, President Barack Obama met privately at the White House with senators on Tuesday. Differences still remain over details, the president said, but he spoke in highly favorable terms about the measure that party leaders hope to pass by Christmas.

The bill includes "all the criteria that I laid out" in a speech to a joint session of Congress earlier in the year, Obama said. "It is deficit-neutral. It bends the cost curve. It covers 30 million Americans who don't have health insurance, and it has extraordinary insurance reforms in there to make sure that we're preventing abuse."

With the president urging lawmakers to look beyond disappointments they may have about parts of the legislation, several Democrats said that in the private session, liberals lamented the absence of a government-run insurance option they had long sought.

"There was frustration and angst," said U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., agreed: "There's a lot of that going around."

Rockefeller added that Obama had emphasized the historic nature of the legislation, quoting him as saying the bill was the "biggest thing since Social Security." Rockefeller added, "It's hard to ignore that."

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., issued a more conciliatory statement, saying, "I know there's a lot of frustration out there, both at Joe's position on the public option and at the way he's conveyed it. I share that frustration. But I also know that we have a job to do right now: Pass health care reform that offers people more choices, brings down costs, provides better care and, in the end, saves lives. We're on track to deliver that bill, and I am going to keep working towards that goal."

The meeting followed an intense two days in which Democrats struggled - apparently successfully - to keep the legislation moving forward despite a flare-up over a proposal to expand Medicare to uninsured men and women as young as 55.

Lieberman announced on Sunday that he opposed the proposal, and he threatened to join Republicans in voting against the overall measure if it stayed in the bill.

Democrats are now ready to jettison the Medicare change, and Lieberman told reporters that, assuming they do - and that any government plan or Medicare expansion stays out of the bill - "then I'm going to be in a position where I can say what I've wanted to say all along: that I'm ready to vote for health care reform."

That left U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., the only known potential holdout among the 60 senators who are members of the party's caucus. Nelson has been seeking changes to increase restrictions on abortion coverage in the new insurance marketplace the bill would establish.

Democrats need 60 votes to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster.

Reformers' anger at Lieberman

DeLauro, whose district includes New Haven and some surrounding towns, angrily broke an uneasy peace among Connecticut's all-Democratic delegation to the Congress in an interview with POLITICO, the Washington-based political news outlet.

"No individual should hold health care hostage, including Joe Lieberman, and I'll say it flat out, I think he ought to be recalled," POLITICO quoted DeLauro as saying Tuesday.

Connecticut law has no provision for recall of state officials - though the concept has been considered in recent years after a spate of state and municipal corruption scandals - and rules on expulsion from branches of Congress are controlled by the House and Senate themselves.

But DeLauro's remarks are a stark departure from the tone of the state's delegation in recent months, as Lieberman has increasingly frustrated reform supporters with his opposition to key facets of the Democratic package, including several that he has supported in the past, like a purchasing exchange for health insurance plans for the uninsured and a proposal to let those under age 65 buy in to Medicare.

Lieberman remains a registered Democrat despite still-resonant and bitter battles with his party's base since his near-defeat in 2006. And despite vigorous opposition to his recent maneuverings in the health care debate, the Connecticut delegation members have notably refrained from directly criticizing him.

But that could be changing.

"It's very disappointing for those of us who have been out there doing the town hall meetings and making the case, and seeing that the public really has stayed with us on this issue, to see the position that he announced over the weekend," Courtney said on "The Ed Show" on MSNBC Monday night.

"Again, the Medicare buy-in, as you point out, was part of the Democratic platform going back to the Gore/Lieberman campaign," Courtney said. "And certainly, it would seem that that was a reasonable attempt to try and get his vote given the fact that he went out and campaigned for vice president on that issue."

No flip-flop

In a written statement of his own Tuesday, released by his press staff, Lieberman said there is "much that is needed and worthy in the core bill that I support." And he rebutted claims that he had "flip-flopped" on issues like the Medicare buy-in, which he supported in less dire fiscal times.

"The process to reach agreement on a bill has often been difficult, but I sense we are now taking significant steps forward to obtain 60 votes on the Senate floor," Lieberman's statement said in part. "I look forward to passing a bill that will give the American people genuine health care reform without impeding our recovery from the current recession or adding to our exploding national debt."

Portions of an Associated Press report were included in this story.