Dems Say Sen. Ben Nelson's Deal Was Setback For Health Care

If you take these statements at face value, they are absurd. Very few people follow the ins and outs of the bill closely enough to know about this stuff.

However, if you see politicians suggesting that Nelson's deal was the 'message of Massachusetts' it also suggests a simple way forward on the bill, since it turns the public narrative away from 'Massachusetts was a repudiation of Health Care Reform as such' into a repudiation of a small piece of the bill that even it's major beneficiary has already expressed a willingness to walk away from.

People of every party should be pissed about the Nebraska bribe. It was bullshit, and Nelson and the good people of Nebraska should be embarrassed by it.

The question is whether Nelson repents or if he's as shameless as Lieberman and ignores the antipathy to Nebraska his actions engender.

So, aside from what's going on in Nebraska, is there any actual empirical data to support this assertion, or is this just another anecdote driven bit of Village CW that the MSM pulled out of it's collective ass?

Republicans assigned snarky names to the dealmaking (first blasting Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) for the "Louisiana Purchase"), and the name calling is catching on.

No kidding that it's catching on. Republicans outflank Democrats almost every time when it comes to snarky name-calling.

Death tax? Death panels? Cornhusker Kickback?

Nelson's vanity at stopping the momentum that was building and insisting on his own Stupak moment was a wedge to force the deals made to make him back off, accept a deal and let things roll. Unfortunately, he killed that.

Democrats were surprised to see the process get so much attention, but realize now that such deals are a bad idea.

Good Lord.

Time to stop the blame game and do fruitful work. A list of topics that were not addressed well last time. Now is the time for meaningful change.

http://www.lifenews.com/nat5862.html

I believe this was simply one highlighted moment of the bankrupt deals that have given HCR the pathetic apparition it currently sports. People were aware that they wouldn't have serious reform when PO (particularly the expanded Medicare notion which enjoyed much popularity across party lines) was dropped. The Nebraska shenanigans reinforced the perception that Washington continues to serve lobbyists and obstructionist power brokers at the peril of the citizenry at large.

Probably inserted the poison pill on purpose. It could be taken out via reconciliation, however having to cut such an odious deal has tainted the whole process.

Boehner and McConnell are desperate to get the Dems to start over. They realize how close it really is, McConnell has taken to taunting the House Dems into not simply voting for the senate bill by saying along the lines of "It's up to House Democrats if they want to be nothing more than a rubber stamp for the Senate, if they want to remain relevant".

Not buying this one bit. Nelson who? Landrieu who? Senators make deals to get votes? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!!

Americans are not paying attention to this crap and even if they heard of these deals, most of us believe that Congress does this all the time anyway and to hear the GOP get pissy about it is very funny.

So, Yawn.

Get out of the bubble folks! The whole HCR process is taking too long and people don't know what's in it for them. Pass it, sell it, move on.

Not that I'm in any way happy with Nelson, but one thing that bothers me is how such deals are being portrayed as if Nelson was getting a big check (or some big Nelson backing consortium was getting a big check).

Sure, it's ridiculous that NE essentially gets its Medicaid covered by the other states, but we need to distinguish between pork and bribes and an overzealousness to get what you can for your state that becomes laughably unbalanced.

I do have a lot more sympathy for Landrieu... Louisiana is still hurting big time - and this extends to health care - to an unprecedented extent. The issue is unique to LA (as opposed to MS or TX) because New Orleans is essentially the largest urban area in Katrina's path, and if memory serves -- the entire area now has exactly ONE non-private hospital.

The Medicare cuts to charity care and Medicaid enhancements were absolutely going to kill health care in an are that's already on life support for health care. One way or another, Louisiana was going to need something substantially more than the baseline plan.

This is actually one the reasons I've never been on board the single payer bandwagon and am quite ready to sacrifice a broad scale public option.... Unlike nations with smaller geographic boundaries, smaller populations, or both -- the difference between the availability of care, COL adjustments, etc in New Orleans vs. New York City vs. Des Moines vs. Dogpatch Arkanas vs Boise vs whatever just makes a national plan much, much, much harder to implement in the US than in France, the UK, or even Canada.

Medicare struggles with it now... you'd be hard-pressed to find a provider that doesn't think his or her CAH facility is getting screwed by Medicare GPCI rates while an urban DSH is making out like a bandit (and go to that urban DSH and they'd say the same, but opposite -- they're getting screwed while the rural CAH is soaking in the bucks).

One reason Medicaid works reasonably well -- when it's funded properly and administered by a state government that wouldn't prefer to kill it -- is that it lets states handle more granular adjustments that are simply too hard to do at a federal level.

The American people have not soured on HCR. The Senate has, Congress, from the get-go, was too concerned with campaign contributions to bother with HCR. Li'l Ben is no worse than Sen. Tom "we have to be fair to my PhARMA contributors" Carper (Republicrat from DE).
I do NOT want health insurance. I WANT health CARE! Thanks to a totally corrupt system we have no public option, which would have been the weakest of reforms.
The American people have not soured on HCR, but we have soured on out bought-and-paid-for Congress. Grow some balls, senators. Do the right thing just once.

Dems Say Sen. Ben Nelson's Deal Was Setback For Health Care

And Nelson's patting himself on the back and saying, "Well done, me boy!"

Cheers,

They're FINALLY finding out what happens when you don't twist arms and make threats about any future legislation the Senator(s) want.

I'm skeptical that anyone is against HCR over the deal with Senator Ben Nelson's who wasn't already against it.

There were a lot of things that derailed HCR. If someone's being hanged, stabbed, shot and guillotined all at the same time, it's kinda hard to determine the exact cause of death. With the likes of Lieberman, Nelson and the Republicans, the hapless and clueless Dems had no chance.

Funny how no one questions where Americans For Prosperity gets their funding from:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity#Funding

This deal was real sleaze. I'm not surprised to hear that it's hurting Nelson in Nebraska, just as I suspect it will hurt Reid.

I hate to turn on Reid and Pelosi after their competent (though not stellar) leadership during the Bush-opposition years, but we need leaders who aren't satisfied with Congress being such a cesspool. They're going to be replaced if November's elections turn out to be a fiasco anyway, so why not try to avoid the fiasco in the first place? Even if replacing them means delaying health care reform, it will be worth it.

I think Ben Nelson was a setback for health care...no need to go any farther than that.

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