(December 13, 2009 - Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America)
This morning, in a cowardly Saturday morning address, Senator Ben Nelson announced that he would vote for cloture and would support the Senate version of Obamacare. He told a group of reporters (that likely hated their lives for having to report on this crap first thing Saturday morning) that he had been apprehensive about the plan because of the public option and the Medicare Buy-In, but was now comfortable voting for the health care proposal that for weeks he has said was “too vague” in its treatment of abortion services and funding. Well that language doesn’t appear to have changed dramatically over night, so what brought Nelson on board for this final hour push by democrats?
Charles Krauthammer predicted yesterday that there was no price that President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Reid wouldn’t pay to buy off the Senator from Nebraska. He said that the doors to the treasury would open up joyfully to keep one lolly senator from blocking Obamacare. Oh how he was right. Here’s part of the deal that Nelson struck to buy his vote for socialized medicine.
Medicaid is usually paid for with a mix of federal and state funding, but Nelson’s carve out means that any Medicaid beneficiaries who join the program after the bill passes will be funded by the federal government.
So to all of you that don’t live in Nebraska, get ready to bend over and take this one like you should have seen coming. I too have been fooled by Nelson as this process has moved along. I began to think he was a genuine moderate. Such a characterization doesn’t earn him high praise around here, but it certainly keeps him out of the ranks of the absolutely misguided and borderline retarded. Unfortunately, he is back to the short bus with the rest of his people today. For Cornhuskers angry that he went soft on the abortion language, sleep comfortably knowing that folks in the “Long Horn State” and the “Show Me State” will be paying the bill for those abortions carried out in Nebraska for many years to come. At least the bill for those atrocities won’t find its way to your house.
A note of “sobriety and sanity” from The Other McCain…
President Obama will “loot the Treasury” to pay off Ben Nelson
I find the abortion issue faaar less troubling than the fact that this bill caps a private corporation’s profits at 20%… How long before the Dems apply this to other industries?
I would certainly agree with you on the greater issue here as I do believe that funding for abortion is and should be prohibited even without expressed language in the bill. I was simply referring to Nelson’s “hardline” that he wasn’t willing to cross for the last two months. It appears that it wasn’t much of a hardline at all; rather it was simply a means to an end in the form of takeaways for his home state. As to your main point, I wholeheartedly share in your concerns. A threat to one industry in the form of out-of-control regulation and profit controls is a threat to our capitalist system as a whole.
I was shocked when I heard about this duplicity last night just before going to bed. Reading about this “bribe” now makes me, as a Nebraskan, made as hell. I now look like a laughingstock to all my friends from out of state. Should I now need to wear a paper bag over my head when I travel cross-country? I now BEAR SHAME!
Id save the paper bag and start finding a Republican to run against the sellout ASAP. Put the paper bag close though as you might need it to get you through Cornhusker basketball season. You might have to go Bengal and cut some holes in it while you watch the boys
Great post! I really like your blog!!
Common Cents
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