Jan 01 2010
Nebraska Senator Tells McMaster to Call Off the Dogs
If you have followed the saga of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Democrats’ health care disaster being rammed through the Congress, you probably heard that the bill’s passage through the U.S. Senate was finally secured through a bribe to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (D) promising his state free Medicaid funds in exchange for his vote. This is not a privilege that any other state will be the lucky recipient of. Like many other parts of this legislation that fail to live up to constitutional muster, this specific provision has not set well with several state attorneys general around the country, including our own Henry McMaster here in South Carolina.
McMaster is the ring leader of a group of 13 attorneys general who have threatened a legal challenge to the Nebraska deal citing that it violates equal protection as laid out in the U.S. Constitution. McMaster and the others sent a letter this past Wednesday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) demanding that they remove the promised Medicaid funds from the legislation that will be funneled to Nebraska at the expense of the other 49 states or face a legal battle in the Supreme Court. This has sent Senator Nelson, who has already plummeted 31 points in the polls after making this deal, into a bit of a panic.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) reached out Thursday evening to South Carolina GOP Attorney General Henry McMaster, the leader of a group of 13 Republican state attorneys general who are threatening to file suit against the Senate health care bill, and urged him to forgo any legal action, POLITICO has learned.
According to a copy of a memo sent by McMaster’s chief of staff to other GOP state attorneys general detailing the call, Nelson asked McMaster to “call off the dogs,” a reference to recent threats by the state AGs to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Medicaid provision in the bill that benefits Nebraska at the expense of other states.
Under the terms of a deal Nelson cut with Senate leaders to secure his crucial vote for the health care package, Nebraska would be exempted from having to pay for the coverage of its new Medicaid enrollees—leaving the federal government to pick up the tab. The deal is expected to cost the federal government $100 million over the next 10 years.
If this bill eventually gets reconciled between the House and Senate and is signed by President Obama, which I have little doubt it won’t, this will be the first of many other legal challenges this bill is going to face. This health care bill is the most corrupt and intrusive power grab by the Federal government that in my opinion has ever been attempted in my lifetime. I am happy to see that my state’s elected representatives are on the front line of the fight to stop this abomination of our freedom from taking place.
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