Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Jim Gibbons vs. Harry Reid: Health care plan ignites dispute

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Harry Reid

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Gov. Jim Gibbons

CARSON CITY – Gov. Jim Gibbons, who sent a mild and agreeable letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about an education issue earlier this week, is now hammering the senator for his federal health care plan.

It will raise taxes for businesses and add $613 million in expenses to the state for health care for low income residents for a five-year period starting in 2014, Gibbons says.

But a Reid spokesman said Gibbons is all wet and added, “It’s hard to imagine why the governor of a state that is suffering so much is so opposed to helping the people who need it the most.”

The governor on Wednesday dispatched a return letter to Reid saying he agrees with the senator that a Nevada law needs to be repealed to qualify the state for up to $175 million in federal money for education. He said he hopes Reid will stand with him in asking the Legislature to scrap the law.

But Thursday, the governor issued a highly critical press release about the Reid health care bill. The governor said the proposal before the Senate would add more than 41,000 people in 2014 to the Medicaid budget, the federal-state program that covers health care for the low income citizens.

“Overall, the Reid plan will cost Nevada taxpayers more than $613 million in state general fund dollars between 2014 and 2019,” Gibbons said.

The governor said the Reid plan “increases taxes on Nevada businesses and individuals directly through new taxes on existing health plans, an increase in Medicare payroll taxes, taxing Medicaid managed care plans, the elimination of itemized medical expense deduction and more.”

Reid spokesman Jon Summers says Gibbons is "using fuzzy math" in his calculations. “This bill will cut insurance premiums for Nevadans by as much as $1,600 a year, provides tax credits for up to 24,000 small business and provides the state of Nevada more than $8 billion to cover Nevadans in need.”

The governor said Nevadans will be forced to finance the $1.7 billion in income taxes for the Medicaid cost-share system. And the Reid bill would grant the federal government “a historic level of authority over the health care industry…” Gibbons complained.

Summers says the Reid bill will provide the reductions in insurance premiums and tax credits “while cutting the national deficit by nearly $130 billion over the next 10 years.”

Gibbons is being challenged in next year’s election by Reid’s son, Rory, who is a Democrat candidate for governor.

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