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Donna Smith

Donna Smith, American SiCKO, is executive director of the Health Care for All Colorado Foundation

October 28th, 2009 4:57 PM

TARP-Loving Joe Loves Bailing Out Banks but Not Providing Healthcare

Are we to believe Senator Joe Lieberman objects to a public health insurance plan because he's a raging believer in the free market or in protecting taxpayers funds? That's just not true Joe. You're a TARP-lover, aren't you? Come on, tell the truth.

Joe loved voting for the Troubled Asset Relief Program last fall. Bailout fun and taxpayer debt -- all for those bankers. Joe was front and center. A lot of lawmakers were, and those votes were recorded.

Welfare for the wealthy bankers, that's what you supported, Joe. Too bad you don't think working people in Connecticut deserve healthcare. Wealth-care is your goal. Sad.

As one of the Senators who voted boldly and proudly to bail out the banks last fall, Senator Lieberman is not all about free market or avoidance of government funding. He just wants to help the bankers and profiteers socialize their risks while allowing them to keep private their profits. He'll let you and me put up the cash for the bankers and brokers -- he has no trouble at all doling out taxpayer money when it matters to him. Our healthcare just doesn't rise to that level for him.

Here's what FOX news wrote today about their friend Joe:

Sen. Joe Lieberman reaffirmed his pledge Wednesday to withhold his vote for the Senate's sweeping health care reform bill if it includes a so-called "public option," saying a government-run plan is "unnecessary" and threatens to drive up costs for taxpayers.

"It's not free," the Connecticut senator told Fox News on Wednesday.

Lieberman, an Independent Democrat, said a day earlier that he would back a Republican filibuster against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's health care reform bill if a government-backed insurance plan remains in the package. He warned Wednesday that the plan would have several negative side effects.

"Someone's going to have to pay for it and you bet it's going to be the taxpayer," Lieberman said, adding that a government-run insurance plan will drive up premiums -- despite claims from some Democrats that it would lead to an improved system because it will create healthy competition.

Oh, Joe, come on now. You voted to put the very same taxpayers on the hook for trillions for banker and Wall Street bailouts, didn't you?

Seems like you don't much give a damn about taxpayer liability when your deepest and most abiding concern is for the wealthy and for Joe Lieberman. Shame on you. Are you going to tell seniors in Connecticut next that you hate their government run and funded Medicare and it has to go? How about veterans getting their healthcare from the VA? Is that the sort of healthcare you hate too, Joe?

Shame, shame... follow the money. Joe sure does. Oh you TARP lovers have some answering to do to the rest of the nation now, don't you?

You see you cannot vote for your wealthy friends and contributors' interests and profits so blatantly and then follow it by blocking the basic human rights of your constituents without getting caught. Your fingers aren't just in the cookie jar; they're deep in the bank vault grabbing the hard earned money of those taxpayers you are failing to protect.

Donna Smith is a community organizer for the California Nurses Association and National Co-Chair for the Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.

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