Harry Reid created a real mess. Ben Nelson is in trouble with the voters in Nebraska since they don’t like health care reform and his little gift to the state of free Medicaid increases, which would be substantial with the new enrollees with the reform plan, did not get him forgiveness for casting the deciding vote.
Other states, including liberal states like New York and California, resent income redistribution in this form. They don’t want to pay for Nebraska’s Medicaid pass. Their solution, letters to the Senate asking for the Feds to pay for their Medicaid increases as well.
Watch out, Ben Nelson, you are about to be double-crossed by Reid and your fellow Democrats. They will bend to the pressure of California and New York and change the bill to cover all state increases in Medicaid payments from those millions of people who will now get Medicaid.
Guess what, Ben, you will lose your Senate seat, be known forever as the guy who cast the deciding vote for a very unpopular health care reform bill, and your state will have the same deal all the other states have.
Ben, it’s hard to feel sorry for you. You’ve been in the Senate long enough to know you are part of a club populated by unscrupulous people. Slipping the knife in your back is no problem for them. You will just be collateral damage. They got what they needed from you and you are the first of many in Congress who will have walked the plank for Obamacare. In 2010 when you are planning to retire since the polls show you can’t win in 2012, the water will be full of the carcasses of your fellow Senators and Representatives who are already out of office in repayment for their votes on health care reform and their support of Obama. The very man who double crossed you on your vote, Harry Reid will be floating there.
If it’s any consolation, most of your fellow Democrats misread the Obama mandate and the willingness of Americans to succumb to a Nanny State. America just wanted to purge itself of Bush and didn’t buy into Socialism.
Ben, you sold out the country for a few pieces of silver. Then you lost the silver. Not only did you do the wrong thing, but you did a dumb thing. Shame on you, Ben.