Ben Nelson whores himself to the highest bidder, will vote for cloture

obamacare-its-to-die-forAny of you really surprised? I’m not. As I and others have said, there are no such things are “moderate” Democrats. They are no better than Republicans and simply can be bought off buy the highest bidder. The latest DC whore is Ben Nelson of Nebraska. According to the Washington Post, Nelson announced to his colleagues that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Christmas of Obama’s top domestic policy priority.

Asked if he had secured the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) told reporters, “It seems that way.”

The Senate is expected to work its way through a series of procedural motions over the next few days, with a vote on the legislation scheduled the evening of Dec. 24th. A conference with the House to produce a final bill would likely extend into January, Senate aides said.

Congressional budget analysts said the revised package, unveiled Saturday morning by Reid, would spend $871 billion over the next decade to extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans by dramatically expanding Medicaid and offering federal subsidies to those who lack affordable coverage through employers.

Those costs would be more than covered by nearly $400 billion over the next decade in new taxes and nearly $500 billion spending reductions, primarily cuts to Medicare, the federal health program for people over 65. The remainder, about $132 billion over 10 years, would go to lowering the federal deficit.

But the Congressional Budget Office found that the package could reduce budget deficits by as much as $1.3 trillion in the second decade, starting in 2019, a significant improvement in long-run savings compared with both the House bill and the measure Reid had previously crafted. In his blog, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf attributes the change to lower targets for Medicare spending after 2019.

Democratic leaders worked for days to hammer out a deal with Nelson, and finally reached a tentative agreement late Friday night with him on abortion coverage provisions that had proven the major stumbling block to winning his support. Nelson also secured favors for his home state and to benefit different factions of the health-insurance industry.

Republicans strongly rejected the revised bill as laden with risky new policies and giveaways to win votes. GOP leaders invoked a Senate rule to require the package of changes in the legislation to be read aloud on the floor, a process expected to last about five hours.

“This bill is a monstrosity, a 2,100 page monstrosity full of special deals,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “This is not renaming the post office. Make no mistake, this bill will reshape our nation and our lives.”

But Republicans also were running out of options in their quest to derail the bill. Locking down Nelson’s support meant Reid had cleared a path through the Senate’s complex parliamentary minefield. A 60-vote super majority means the minority’s primary source of power in the Senate, the filibuster, cannot be sustained.

Under the new abortion provisions, states can opt out of allowing plans to cover abortion in the new insurance exchanges the bill would set up, to serve individuals who lack coverage through their jobs. Plus, enrollees in plans that do cover abortion procedures would pay for the coverage with separate checks — one for abortion, one for the rest of any health-care services.

Nelson secured full federal funding for his state to expand Medicaid coverage to all individuals below 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Other states must pay a small portion of the additional cost. He won concessions for qualifying nonprofit insurers and for Medigap providers from a new insurance tax, and was able to roll back cuts to health savings accounts.

“I know this is hard for some of my colleagues to accept and I appreciate their right to disagree,” Nelson told reporters at the Capitol, of the many changes made at his behest. “But I would not have voted for this bill without these provisions.”

The revised Senate bill closely tracks with the $848 billion measure Reid drafted earlier this month, before he entered into negotiations aimed at winning the needed 60 votes. Since then, Reid has made numerous concessions to moderate Democrats in addition to Nelson and others with abortion-related concerns. Reid also scrapped efforts for a government-run insurance plan, or public option.

Instead of a public option, the final bill would allow private firms for the first time to offer national insurance policies to all Americans across state lines. Those plans would be negotiated through the Office of Personnel Management, the same agency that handles health coverage for federal workers and members of Congress.


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December 19, 2009 · Filed Under Democrats, ObamaCARE

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One Response to “Ben Nelson whores himself to the highest bidder, will vote for cloture”

  1. inspectorudy on December 19th, 2009 12:35 pm

    One of the constant things about whores is that they always have a price. It might be higher than some of the other whores they hang out with but in the end all whores can be bought. If the good people of Nebraska had the principles that Nelson obviously doesn’t, they would re-call this floozy.

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