Democratic U.S. Senator Nelson of Nebraska broke the logjam this morning when he told his fellow Senators he had decided to support the healthcare reform bill that needed just one more vote to assure passage. What convinced him? Some discussion about the needs of America's uninsured? Statistics about the cost of Medicaid? No. Nelson traded his vote for the good of his his own people. According to The Washington Post story:
Since Medicaid is one of the factors pushing Alabama's state budgets into the red, forcing program cuts, should either Senator Shelby or Senator Jeff Sessions have agreed to change their vote in return for protecting Alabama's poor?
[UPDATE: Monay, Dec. 21, other States which benefited from the bill's language.]
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. Alabama's two U.S. Senators stood their ground with their thirty-eight Republican peers and voted against the bill. (Richard Shelby had said President Obama was taking the first step in "destroying the best healthcare syatem in the world!")
Since Medicaid is one of the factors pushing Alabama's state budgets into the red, forcing program cuts, should either Senator Shelby or Senator Jeff Sessions have agreed to change their vote in return for protecting Alabama's poor?
[UPDATE: Monay, Dec. 21, other States which benefited from the bill's language.]
Tim... who do you think Shelby and clown Sessions are kidding?
ReplyDeleteShelby is a MULTI-Millionaire!
He doesn't give a RIP about the poor.
He has his.
Screw the rest!
Gee... that sounds kinda' Republican, doesn't it?
Oh yeah... I forgot. He is, er, they is.
The healthcare debate has become very personal for me. At six months old my nephew had a shunt placed in his head to drain excess fluid from his brain. Over the years it has malfunctioned from time to time, which required hospital visits, surgeries and many scary moments for his family. When he was younger Medicaid [paid for these procedures. He is 19 now and recently married and Medicaid will no longer cover the costs of keeping his equipment working properly.
ReplyDeleteAbout a month ago he started having very bad headaches. His job does not provide health insurance and even if it did it wouldn't cover him because he has a pre-existing condition. He has been to the emergency room 7 or 8 times in the last few weeks. He keeps telling them that his shunt is malfunctioning, that he can hear it clicking. He needs a procedure done which involves a neurosurgeon shooting dye into the shunt pump to see if it is working. The ER claims they can't do it so they give him referrals. Every doctor he has been referred to has asked right up front, "Do you have insurance?" When he has responded no he has been told that he cannot be seen.
I guess Richard Shelby, Jeff Sessions and the rest of the Alabama delegation are content to let my nephew lay there and die.
It's amazing to me that these assholes will vote to spend billions and billions invading other countries and killing tens of thousands of people but won't provide a damn dime for kids like my nephew who will die if he doesn't get this procedure done...SOON.