Coy

by digby

A prince’s prerogative is to change his mind.

U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., whose vote could be crucial to breaking an expected GOP filibuster on health care legislation, Thursday said he would consider voting to move the bill forward, even if he ultimately casts his ballot against the reform package.

Democrats will need 60 votes to override a filibuster of a health care reform bill in the Senate.

Elements of two Senate bills on health care are being reconciled by representatives of the White House, and U.S. Sens. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.

Lieberman has said he does not favor the public health option in Dodd’s bill or the excise tax on the so-called “Cadillac” health plans because he fears it will increase consumer premiums. He also objects to cuts in the Medicare Advantage plans to help pay for health care reform.

Connecticut’s junior senator almost lost chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee after he campaigned for GOP presidential nominee U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

He became an independent after losing the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary to Ned Lamont, but won re-election in the general election.

Lieberman said he was “inclined to let the motion to proceed” (or cloture) go forward, but “I haven’t decided yet.”

I guess that’s good news. But if you read on in the article you’ll see that he still doesn’t think you should expand health insurance to everyone and basically believes that we should be bleeding the system of money before we even think of covering everyone. His views are to the right of many Republicans on this.

He may be just acting the contrarian role he’s staked out for himself. t sounds as though he’s counting on Presidents Snowe and Nelson to sufficiently gut the bill so that he can at least let it come to the floor, but at this point we don’t know. Certainly, I think he’ll go off the reservation the minute a decision is made to put in a public option without triggers. He’s worth watching as this thing develops. As long as he’s not publicly committing to back a Republican filibuster, at the very least it means that the issue is still alive.

.

.