THE TELEGRAPH: President Barack Obama's hopes of achieving health care reform have been dealt a body blow by Senator Joe Lieberman, once a Democratic vice-presidential candidate but now one of the party's bêtes noire.
The new threat to the centrepiece of his agenda came as Mr Obama's popularity sunk to its lowest level yet with a Rasmussen poll that gave him an approval rating of just 44 per cent – the lowest for any president at this stage of his first term.
Mr Lieberman, who became an Independent in 2006 after he failed to win the Democratic party primary but retained his Connecticut seat in the general election, is part of the Democratic caucus but has consistently opposed his former party at key moments.
His refusal to back the latest draft health care legislation incensed Democratic aides on Capitol Hill because they believed he had agreed to support a delicate compromise that gave the party the 60 votes it needs to prevent a Republican filibuster.
Mr Lieberman said bluntly that Senator Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, had to scrap the proposal to expand the Medicare state health plan to people as young as 55 or he would not vote for it.
"It will add taxpayer costs," he told CBS News. "It will add to the deficit. It's unnecessary." In a subsequent meeting with Mr Reid, he said he would back a Republican filibuster against the bill if it contained the Medicare provision or allowed the government to sell insurance in competition with private companies.
Mr Lieberman's shock move threatened to doom Mr Reid's compromise plan, which had led Democrats to believe that a historic reform – the centrepiece of Mr Obama's agenda – was within their grasp this year.
In an interview recorded before Mr Lieberman's bombshell, Mr Obama had expressed optimism that the crucial breakthrough had been achieved. "I think it's going to pass out of the Senate before Christmas," he told CBS. >>> Toby Harnden in Washington | Monday, December 14, 2009
