Friday, January 15, 2010

SEN NELSON: PULL NEBRASKA DEAL

This just in from a report on the Huffington Post regarding the 11th hour Healthcare Reform negotiations.

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska is asking Senate leaders to eliminate a controversial Medicaid deal for his state in the health care bill.

The moderate Democrat, who provided the crucial 60th vote for the Senate health care bill, has been criticized because Nebraska was exempted paying any cost of a proposed expansion of Medicaid.

All other states would have to pick up a portion of the tab after the first few years.

Nelson's been arguing ever since that he never wanted a special deal for Nebraska and that he wants all states protected from burdensome new costs.

That didn't quiet the controversy so Nelson took it one step further on Friday and asked for the deal to be withdrawn and replaced with a provision treating all states equally.

Anyone think this will help speed this contaminated piece of Insurance Bailout get through session before the Massachusetts election this Tuesday? I Doubt it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This healthcare reform is becoming quite the debacle and I am very concerned about the final outcome. All of this just to cover a certain percentage of Americans who are uninsured .As the bill stands now it seems that we really haven't covered those individuals once again. All we are left with is a HUGE pricetag for almost the same plan we had before. What a fine mess the Congress and senate have gotten us into. Why the need for speed in this important legislation? These insurance issues have been on the table for decades. Why not slow it down and do it the right way? Once you reorganize and change a major healthplan and it fails I cannot see how you will ever get anything in place again. And then what are we left with??? Utter chaos!!! I do not want my grandchildren to have to pay for this for the rest of their lives. And how did Sen.Nelson even get his" wishlist" granted?? This whole scenario stinks. Don't blame this all on the Republicans. The Democrats have an equal hand in these shenanigans.

Anonymous said...

Nelson's provision in the Senate vesrion has drawn criticism from governors and others in both political parties from the moment it was disclosed, and even former President Bill Clinton urged that it be jettisoned.

In its place, officials said Obama and lawmakers decided to increase federal money for Medicaid in all 50 states, although it was not clear if there would be enough to cover the expansion completely.

We wont know the final outcome untill they send it to the CBO Monday.

Anonymous said...

Really,why do we have to rush it thru before election in Massachusetts? This is insane to push this thru before another possible political party comes to power!! It all goes back to politics. How can this really help the consumer/americans when this is being done? Are they more concerned in protecting their political affliation? I cannot see where they have the best interests of Americans in their thought process.