Post by ScottR@KTP on Dec 23, 2009 22:54:58 GMT -5
Republicans Assail ‘Cornhusker Kickback’ Health Deals
Bloomberg
James Rowley and Nicole Gaouette James Rowley And Nicole Gaouette – Wed Dec 23, 2:04 pm ET
Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The debate over legislation overhauling the U.S. health-care system turned into a argument over whether Democrats made “sweetheart deals” to win the votes of lawmakers such as Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson.
Nelson provided the 60th vote that Senate Democrats needed to get the health bill past three procedural hurdles the Republicans set up to try to block the bill. Later today, the Senate will conduct the last test vote to clear the measure for final passage tomorrow.
On and off the Senate floor, Republicans attacked an agreement Nelson made to exempt his state from paying its share of a plan to expand the Medicaid insurance program for low- income Americans. They accused Democrats of corrupting the Senate by making deals that benefit individual states.
Democrats were “playing ‘The Price is Right’ by offering sweetheart deals” to Nelson and other lawmakers to get their votes, Texas Republican John Cornyn told reporters yesterday. “The rest of us have to pay the price for these additional sweeteners.”
Cornyn said Texas would have to pay $21 billion over the next 10 years. “Of course, the folks in Nebraska and other places -- Louisiana and others -- will not feel that same burden,â€
Republicans called a deal to exempt Nebraska from paying its share of expanding Medicaid the “Cornhusker Kickback,” referring to the state’s nickname.
‘Louisiana Purchase’
They termed an agreement to give Louisiana an extra $300 million in federal assistance for Medicaid the “Louisiana Purchase” for helping secure the support of the state’s Democratic senator, Mary Landrieu.
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso said he wouldn’t be “part of what has been called corruption” in the Senate.
Nelson took the floor to denounce attacks on the deal he struck, telling Republicans “you can twist and you can turn and you can try to distort what happens, but it doesn’t change the underlying fact.”
He said he had sought a provision that would have allowed any state to opt out of the plan to broaden Medicaid eligibility. To reach a deal with Senate Democratic leaders, Nelson said he accepted making his own state exempt from paying its share of the cost of the proposal.
Under the bill’s provisions, the federal government would pay for the entire Medicaid extension from 2014 to 2017. Thereafter, states would pay as much as 10 percent of the additional cost of the greater eligibility.
No ‘Special Deal’
“It’s not a special deal for Nebraska, it is an opportunity to get rid of an under-funded mandate to all the states,” Nelson said. “We’ve drawn a line in the sand and said this is unacceptable” for all states, Nelson said.
He told reporters that other senators are seeking similar exemptions for their states. Such changes could only come in a House-Senate negotiation to reconcile competing versions of the legislation.
In floor debate, Arizona Senator John McCain complained about a special provision that offers Medicare coverage to any resident of Libby, Montana, the site of an open-pit mine for vermiculite, a cancer-causing mineral used for insulation.
Montana Democrat Max Baucus, a chief architect of the health-care legislation, angrily cut off McCain when the Arizona lawmaker accused him of “jamming it” into the health-care legislation without proper budget authorization.
Baucus said his Republican colleague “doesn’t want to deal in good faith.”
‘Pretty Sleazy Process’
South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham complained in a Dec. 21 interview on Fox News that the Senate debate had “turned into a pretty sleazy process.”
At the request of Graham and fellow Republican Senator Jim DeMint, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster said he is investigating the constitutionality of giving Nebraska an exemption from paying its share of the Medicaid expansion.
McMaster’s office said attorneys general in nine other states -- Michigan, Washington, North Dakota, Alabama, Texas, Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Utah -- are joining the effort. All the attorneys general are Republican.
The provision Nelson was able to insert into the legislation “raises very serious concerns about equity, tax fairness as well as the constitutionality of having federal tax levies and mandates that treat one state differently from all the others,” McMaster said in a statement.
Negotiations With House
The $871 billion Senate bill is designed to cover 31 million uninsured Americans and attempts to curb rising medical costs. After passage tomorrow, it would have to be combined with a $1 trillion measure passed by the House on Nov. 7.
Both 10-year bills require that Americans get insurance or pay a penalty, while requiring insurers to accept all comers regardless of preexisting medical conditions. They also offer more government aid for the poor and set up online purchasing exchanges so the uninsured can shop for policies.
Republicans are united against the legislation, saying new rules and programs might crowd out private insurers, raise taxes and explode the federal budget deficit.
The measure to implement the biggest changes in the health system since the 1965 creation of the Medicare program for the elderly is President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority. Obama, who is scheduled to spend the Christmas and New Year’s holidays with his family in Hawaii, said he would stay in Washington until the Senate finishes its work.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, agreed not to use all the time Republicans had to delay a vote to the evening of Dec. 24. McConnell said Republicans have used this week to “expose the details of the bill.”
Republicans are “looking very petulant” by delaying final passage, said Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “They know we have the votes.”
To contact the reporter on this story: James Rowley Washington at jarowley@bloomberg.net Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net .
