Nebraska's thirty pieces of silver

[franksolich]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091220/D9CN9TL80.html

Well, here it is, folks, what our senior senator got for us.

It amounts to $45 million (Democrat estimate) over a decade.

We're cheap.

But to get to the greater point, one needs to emphasize that Nebraskans are not happy about this, mostly because we do not expect the promise, no matter how meager, to be kept, any more than we expect the pro-life provisions to be kept.

Neb.'s Nelson sees backlash on health reform plan
 
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - It was the concern of Nebraska's Republican governor over expanded Medicaid costs in the proposed Senate health care overhaul bill that led to a compromise to cover his state's estimated $45 million share over a decade, U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson said Sunday.

Gov. Dave Heineman "contacted me and he said this is another unfunded federal mandate and it's going to stress the state budget, and I agreed with him," the Nebraska Democrat said. "I said to the leader and others that this is something that has to be fixed. I didn't participate in the way it was fixed."

But Heineman expressed anything but gratitude, saying he had nothing to do with the compromise and calling the overhaul bill "bad news for Nebraska and bad news for America."

"Nebraskans did not ask for a special deal, only a fair deal," Heineman said in a statement Sunday.

That criticism is only a taste of what Nelson has received since announcing Saturday that he would become the 60th vote needed to advance the landmark legislation.....

Nebraska's senior senator will be 71 in 2012, which seems about "average," historically, for Nebraska's senators and congressmen to retire; unlike Vermont and West Virginia, we don't keep the oldsters around forever.

So perhaps Ben Nelson was thinking of retiring anyway.

[Carl]

I went looking to see if the medicaid expansion had been scored yet for New York and couldn`t find anything.

Did find an interesting article though.

http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20091121/NEWS01/911210365/Senate-health-bill-would-change-state%5C-s-Medicaid-reimbursement

How that expanded coverage is paid for is an important issue for New Yorkers. That's because Medicaid is a federal-state partnership in which Albany and the counties now each foot one-quarter of the cost.

The county share is paid, for the most part, paid through county property taxes. And New Yorkers already pay the among the highest property taxes in the nation, according to a recent analysis by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group. It says five of the 20 counties with the highest annual property tax bills are in New York.

In both the House and Senate bills, part of the cost of expanding Medicaid would be passed along to the states.

How is that "won`t raise taxes on anyone making less then $250,000" working for everybody now?

Another article about some of the "goodies" dems have written into the bill..

http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20091221/ZNYT02/912213006?Title=Deep-in-Health-Bill-Very-Specific-Beneficiaries

Deep in Health Bill, Very Specific Beneficiaries
ROBERT PEAR
Published: Monday, December 21, 2009 at 5:11 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, December 21, 2009 at 5:11 a.m.

WASHINGTON — Buried in the deal-clinching health care package that Senate Democrats unveiled over the weekend is an inconspicuous proposal expanding Medicare to cover certain victims of “environmental health hazards.”

Click to enlarge
Senators Max Baucus, left, Harry Reid and Christopher J. Dodd at a news conference on Saturday. Mr. Reid, the majority leader, needed all 60 members of his caucus to back the health bill.
Buy photo
Brendan Smialowski for The New York Times


The intended beneficiaries are identified in a cryptic, mysterious way: individuals exposed to environmental health hazards recognized as a public health emergency in a declaration issued by the federal government on June 17.

And who might those individuals be? It turns out they are people exposed to asbestos from a vermiculite mine in Libby, Mont.

For a decade, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, has been trying to get the government to help them. He is in a position to deliver now because he is chairman of the Finance Committee and a principal author of the health care bill.

Working for a 21st consecutive day, the Senate on Sunday pushed toward a final vote on Christmas Eve on the bill, which would provide health insurance for more than 30 million Americans. Democrats said on Saturday that they had secured the 60th vote needed to pass the bill, and a 60-to-40 procedural vote early Monday morning was the first in a series testing their ability to maintain party unity on the issue.

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, appeared on television talk shows on Sunday with other White House aides in an effort to reframe the debate and to rally Democrats around the bill. Despite polls that show declining public support for the measure, Mr. Axelrod said it would prove to be popular once people learned more about it.

“People understand we’re on the doorstep of doing something really historic that will help the American people and strengthen our country for the long run,” he said.

Mr. Axelrod said the provisions benefiting specific states, like Nebraska, and favored constituencies were a natural part of the legislative process.

“Every senator uses whatever leverage they have to help their states,” Mr. Axelrod said on the CNN program “State of the Union.” “That’s the way it has been. That’s the way it will always be.”

Republicans said they would resist the legislation with every tool available, and they denounced the deal struck on Saturday. “This process is not legislation,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, referring to a variety of special-interest provisions. “This process is corruption. It’s a shame the only way we can come to a consensus in this country is to buy votes.”

Mr. Baucus defended the assistance for those affected by the asbestos site in his state. “The people of Libby were poisoned and have been dying for more than a decade,” he said. “New residents continue to get sick all the time. Public health tragedies like this could happen in any town in America. We need this type of mechanism to help people when they need it most.”

Items were inserted into the bill by the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, to get or keep the support of various lawmakers. He needs support from all 60 members of his caucus to overcome a Republican filibuster and pass the bill by his self-imposed Christmas deadline.

Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, was the critical final Democrat to endorse the bill. He obtained tighter restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion, and additional Medicaid money and other benefits for his state.

Another item in the package would increase Medicare payments to hospitals and doctors in any state where at least 50 percent of the counties are “frontier counties,” defined as those having a population density less than six people per square mile.

And which are the lucky states? The bill gives no clue. But the Congressional Budget Office has determined that Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming meet the criteria.

Another provision would give $100 million to an unnamed “health care facility” affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in a state where there is only one public medical and dental school.

Senators and their aides said on Sunday that they were not sure who would qualify for this money or who had requested it.

Dr. Atul Grover, the chief lobbyist for the Association of American Medical Colleges, said he believed that Commonwealth Medical College, a new school in Scranton, Pa., was a likely candidate.

Reached at home on Sunday, Dr. Robert M. D’Alessandri, the president of the medical school, said initially, “We meet the conditions” in the Senate proposal. But then he said he was not so sure.

The Senate health bill, like one passed by the House last month, would impose tough new restrictions on referrals of Medicare patients by doctors to hospitals in which the doctors have financial interests. The package assembled by Mr. Reid would provide exemptions to a small number of such hospitals, including one in Nebraska.

Under the original Senate bill, doctor-owned hospitals could qualify for this exemption if they were certified as Medicare providers by Feb. 1, 2010. Mr. Reid’s proposal would move the deadline to Aug. 1, 2010.

Molly Sandvig, executive director of Physician Hospitals of America, which represents doctor-owned hospitals, said the change would benefit Bellevue Medical Center, scheduled to open next year in Bellevue, Neb.

Under the proposal, Ms. Sandvig said, “doctor-owners can continue to refer Medicare patients to the hospital” in eastern Nebraska.

“Senator Nelson has always been a friend to our industry,” she said. “But doctor-owned hospitals in other states were not so fortunate. They would not meet the Aug. 1 deadline.”

Another provision of the bill would increase Medicare payments to certain “low-volume hospitals” treating limited numbers of Medicare patients. Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the Senate health committee, said this “important fix” would help midsize Iowa hospitals in Grinnell, Keokuk and Spirit Lake.

Another item in Mr. Reid’s package specifies the data that Medicare officials should use in adjusting payments to hospitals to reflect local wage levels. The officials can use certain new data only if it produces a higher index and therefore higher Medicare payments for these hospitals.

Senate Democrats said this provision would benefit hospitals in Connecticut and Michigan.

Mr. Reid’s proposal also provides additional money to several states to help pay for the expansion of Medicaid to cover many childless adults and parents who did not previously qualify.

Senate Democrats said Saturday that the cost would probably be less than $100 million over 10 years. But the Congressional Budget Office said Sunday that the cost of this provision, benefiting Massachusetts, Nebraska and Vermont, “is approximately $1.2 billion over the 2010-2019 period.” Massachusetts and Vermont have been leaders in providing health insurance to their residents.

Nebraska, with help from Mr. Nelson, won a particularly generous arrangement under which the federal government would indefinitely pay the full cost of covering certain low-income people added to the Medicaid rolls under the bill.

Republicans derided this provision as the “Cornhusker kickback.” And they said it was typical of the favors Democrats had given to Mr. Nelson and a handful of other senators.

“You’ve got to compliment Ben Nelson for playing ‘The Price is Right,’ ” said Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina. “He negotiated a Medicaid agreement for Nebraska that puts the federal government on the hook forever. Not for six years, not for 10 years. This isn’t the Louisiana Purchase; this is the Nebraska windfall.”

America is at the doorstep of her end.

[franksolich]

"Cornhusker Kickback"--now, that's a jewel of a phrase; I like it.

Well, if the total cost is "expected" to be $1.2 billion for Massachusetts, Vermont, and Nebraska, with Nebraska getting $45 million, and Vermont being a smaller state than Nebraska, it looks as if Massachusetts is getting most of the money.

Which leads to.....

.....the two Democrat senators from Massachusetts were going to vote for the bill anyway, so why was it necessary to bribe them?

[Oceander]

"Cornhusker Kickback"--now, that's a jewel of a phrase; I like it.

Well, if the total cost is "expected" to be $1.2 billion for Massachusetts, Vermont, and Nebraska, with Nebraska getting $45 million, and Vermont being a smaller state than Nebraska, it looks as if Massachusetts is getting most of the money.

Which leads to.....

.....the two Democrat senators from Massachusetts were going to vote for the bill anyway, so why was it necessary to bribe them?

Oh, that wasn't a bribe, that was payment on payola due and owing on account of corrupt support for those two vile bags of sh*t for earlier campaigns.  Mass. should probably just be kicked out of the Union by the rest of the states.

[DumbAss Tanker]

The 'Pro-Life' provisions are purely an illusion for the gullible and stupid.  Nebraskans' Federal taxes will still be paying for abortions in any state that wants to allow their funding.

[franksolich]

The 'Pro-Life' provisions are purely an illusion for the gullible and stupid.  Nebraskans' Federal taxes will still be paying for abortions in any state that wants to allow their funding.

The sentiment here seems to be it's just not going to happen.

The exemption from rising Medicaid costs, the restrictions on abortion, they aren't going to happen.

Our senior senator sold Nebraska for not thirty pieces of silver, but thirty pieces of fool's gold.

[DefiantSix]

a very Merry Christmas to the primitives on Skins's island; God Is, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it, so give it up, accept, adapt, and move on.

Frank, if you were any closer, I'd give you a big, wet, slurpy kiss (on the cheek; I'm not teh ghey or anything) for that sig-line.  As it is, I'm frantically searching for a hi-5 button to mash a dozen tiimes or so.

[thundley4]

The sentiment here seems to be it's just not going to happen.

The exemption from rising Medicaid costs, the restrictions on abortion, they aren't going to happen.

Our senior senator sold Nebraska for not thirty pieces of silver, but thirty pieces of fool's gold.

Shorter Ben Nelson: Killing Indian Babies is Fine, Just Don’t Kill White Babies

Poor Ben Nelson. He went on John King’s show today and told King, “f you think it’s fun having both sides on an issue mad at you when you’re trying to do something in good faith, just think, it’s like going home and getting bit by the family dog. So how — who enjoys that?”

We all know the truth, however. The proof is in the pudding of Ben Nelson’s arrangements with Harry Reid.

Nelson said he was standing firm on pro-life issues, but in fact his compromise will not help him. His compromise authorizes federal funding of abortions on Indian Reservations, but will make it difficult for white Americans to have access to abortions during Republican administrations.

That is the key. Under Nelson’s compromise, abortion access will fluctuate based on who the President is. A pro-life President will have the power to make it more difficult. A pro-death President like Barack Obama will make it exceedingly easy. The only constant will be federal abortion funding for Indians.

Redstate

[Chris_]

Can actual States refuse to fund their part and basically tell the federal gov to go screw itself?

[bkg]

Can actual States refuse to fund their part and basically tell the federal gov to go screw itself?

Sure... and then the Fed gov't will cut off funding for other things...

[Chris_]

Sure... and then the Fed gov't will cut off funding for other things...

Maybe it is getting close to that time for States to stand up for their rights.

[bkg]

Maybe it is getting close to that time for States to stand up for their rights.

It will take one getting bent over pretty hard before that happens.