Tax Dollars Grease Skid Toward Health VoteEverybody involved expects a vote — or at least a resolution, one way or another — this week on the Senate health care plan Democrats in the House have to pass if the misnamed reform is to get done. As the politicking heats up, the machinations to get votes, through persuasion or rewards at the expense of taxpayers, are coming fast and furious. The most obvious is a signal that the special deals cut in the Senate to get wavering conservative Democrats — the Cornhusker Kickback to increase Medicare funding for Nebraska; the Louisiana Purchase that threw in an extra $300 million for that state; or Gator Aid, which offered sweeteners for Florida — might not be completely off the table. The standard story was that all those deals, to which many House members object strongly, would be eliminated in a "reconciliation" bill once President Barack Obama signed the basic legislation. However, White House counselor David Axelrod on Sunday pulled back a bit from that position, saying that, while sweetheart deals that affect only one state will be eliminated and won't be renewed, provisions that affect more than one state might be all right.
Of course, such deals wouldn't make the resulting bill any more financially sustainable — indeed, they would almost certainly make it less so — but at this point the goal is to get something passed and worry later about whether it actually works. Meanwhile, opponents of the bill spent about $11 million this month in ads targeted at districts whose representative appears undecided, and proponents (financed by Big Pharma) are spending $12 million. While that's a lot of money, the issue — whether the U.S. takes a significant, perhaps irreversible, step toward a European-style welfare state — could hardly be more important. REPRINTED FROM THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER. DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
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