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Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009 | 9:22 p.m.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., speaks to reporters as Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., left, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, listen, on Capitol Hill Saturday (Dec. 19, 2009) in Washington, D.C.
Sun Coverage
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made no apologies three months ago when he secured in the health care bill 100 percent federal funding for an expansion of Medicaid in Nevada.
The sweetheart deal was impressive. Only Nevada and a handful of other states hard hit by the recession were given such treatment.
Republican opponents cried foul over the special treatment, but Reid refused to back down.
The proposal to expand Medicaid has been a contentious one. Governors on both sides of the political aisle have expressed reservations about being saddled with greater costs in funding the state-run health insurance program for more low-income children and families.
Eventually, a later version of the legislation gave all states full, 100 percent funding for the first three years of the Medicaid expansion. After that, states would have to spend about 15 cents on every $1 they receive from the federal government for the program.
But on Saturday, as the final version of the bill was released, the deal Reid cut was even sweeter for one state — Nebraska.
To win the vote of Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a final holdout, Reid offered the senator’s state full, 100 percent funding for the Medicaid expansion for the indefinite future.
Again, Reid offered no apologies.
“You’ll find a number of states are treated differently than other states,” Reid said after he unveiled the bill. “That’s what legislation is all about. It’s compromise.”
The deal could prove problematic for Reid in Nevada, where his potential Republican opponents in the 2010 election have complained that he is not using his leadership to do enough for Nevada during the recession.
But Reid’s office has said previously that if Nevada’s economy is still troubled in three years and the state needs full Medicaid funding, Reid can work on securing it then.
On Sunday, Republicans seized on the special treatment. One after another, Republican senators sought to amend the health care bill to cut the same Medicaid deal for other states.
One by one their entreaties were rejected by Democrats.
When one Republican sought to extend the deal to Montana, the home state of Sen. Max Baucus, the Democratic chairman of the Finance Committee said, “As enticing as that might sound, I object.”
Reid spokesman Tom Brede noted the other achievements in the bill that would come to Nevada:
“In addition to securing three years of full funding for Medicaid, Sen. Reid worked to ensure the following for Nevadans in the Senate's health insurance reform bill:
“Affordable coverage for the more than 500,000 who do not currently have insurance; tax credits for more than 300,000 to purchase coverage; lower premiums and prescription drug costs for Nevada's 328,000 Medicare beneficiaries; and tax credits for 24,000 small businesses to make coverage more affordable for their employees.”
Let's make a deal harry. What a joke.
I believe the correct term is BRIBE.
This is better known as prostitutes at work. For Searchlight Harry prostitution is legal in Nevada.
Here's the list of just some of the bribes:
$100 million to Nelson;
$100 million to Dodd;
$600 million to Vermont;
$500 million to Mass.;
$300 million to Landrieu.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-r...
Gried doesn't realize this is OUR money he is giving away just to get the 60. IF O passes this monstrosity debt on to us - and I'm sure he will - this house will vote for ANY opponent than runs against him. WOW! How things can change in just a year....
The Dems dont want to debate on the merits, they use force, bribes and lies to pass this take over of the health care system.
Wasn't it Otto von Bismark who once said that two things one should never watch being made are laws and sausages?
It's no surprise that these bribes are being parceled out.
And politicians wonder why half the electorate doesn't bother to vote and the half that do are disgusted with both sides of the figurative aisle!
Usually, D.C. shuts down completely under a dusting of snow. Usually, Congress will have nothing to do with showing up to work on a weekend. Guess all it takes for those scurvy wastes-of-space to overcome the impossible double obstacle of a major weekend snowstorm and show up at the office is the imminent opportunity to overthrow one-sixth of the country's economy and shackle us all to European-style taxation levels.
Didn't these paste-for-brains muttonheads learn anything from the fall of Soviet communism, the breakup of the USSR, the capitalismization of the Chinese economy, almost 50 years worth of floating Edsels making the trip from Cuba to Miami, and the recent conservative party candidate wins in the European Union elections? Human beings are driven by a biologic need to do better for themselves and for their families. It's the "survival" thing. We DO NOT want the playing field leveled, and we DO NOT want forced dependence on "free" government mediocrity paid for at the expense of ourselves and our futures.
Viva la Constitution of the United States!!
I am very thank ful. My wife's sister and her family lives in Nebraska, good to know we will always have the money for free health care.
Harry Reid is a despicable human being and a despicable Senator. The man only wants to satisfy the needs of master obama and the lobbyists and the special interest groups. Obama promised more open and honest government. We are not seeing that. It is more corrupt than ever. Blatant bribery caused passage of the Health Care Reform bill in the Senate - not good legislation for the American people.
VOTE HARRY OUT OF OFFICE IN 2010.
Harry is such a joke. He buys votes with tax payer money and he is praised be many,not all democrats.
This is appalling!
This current administration is nothing more than special interest, thievery and a grab of power. For those that praise the Obama admin and the dems attach on substance instead of name calling. This has nothing to do with race. Even without the health bill, Obama has tripled and almost quadrupled the deficit.
If this isn't a power grab than why cram so much in this year, $3trillion. It doesn't even sound like real money. And what happened to Obama's promise of fiscal responsibility and transparency.
Don't get in a snit, boy from Nebraska.
Your partner Mike Johans helped get the Nebraska Compromise also. Nebraska has always been the pivatol irrigation leader for politics. Just because of the losses on the Bostwick Irrigation Compromise that was helped along by a law firm by the name of Swoyer and Simms in Belleville, Kansas don't try to recoup all of the losses by using persons health care as a trump card. Rural physicians do this enough as it is, especially the young physicians who have families to support and loans to pay off. I know because I have seen prescriptions and bottles of pills used by an insane known criminal written out by Dr. Beavers and filled at Arbuthnot's without any questioning on the part of the dispensing facility nor the physician writing the scripts. The recepient was a friend of the .... that the guy set fire to her house and smashed all the lights out of her vehicle, next door to mine. He was high, she was high, the girl friend was high on booze and prescribed drugs.
So suck it up Nebraska and be adults not the whining piece of information that endangers lives both in Kansas and Nebraska.
Deal-making? Deal-making? How about bribery, political extortion, favoritism, palm greasing, payola............ Harry Reid and his pal, Nancy Pelosi are pure slime balls. The whole Congress operates this way. How long before America wakes up to the fact that these people no longer represent you and I, the ordinary folks?