Democrat Ben Nelson Appears To Have Sold Out And Gave Harry Reid His 60th Vote

Some reactions to Democrat Ben Nelson giving what seems to be his 60th vote in the senate.

The American Thinker:

Democrat Ben “Dover” Nelson, who had previously threatened to join a GOP filibuster of the Senate Health Care Bill, proved today that everything has a price – including a man’s values. The Nebraska Senator just accepted what I’ll generously describe as an enormous “monetary incentive” to do a complete 180 on his long-time position on abortion funding and thereby gave this awful legislation life with his 60th all-Democrat vote.

Obama is happy, and somewhat incoherent. Via My Way News:

Obama devoted his weekend radio and Internet address to the issue he campaigned on in 2008.

“Now – for the first time – there is a clear majority in the Senate that’s willing to stand up to the insurance lobby and embrace lasting health insurance reforms that have eluded us for generations,” Obama said. “Let’s bring this long and vigorous debate to an end.”

“As this difficult year comes to a close, let’s show the American people that we are equal to the task of meeting our great challenges,” he said.

John McCain is less than enthused

“The best thing government could do to ensure more Americans have access to health care insurance is to institute reforms that would rein in costs and make health care more affordable,” said McCain, R-Ariz. “Regrettably, there’s nothing in this legislation that effectively addresses the problem.”

Carl Levin is trying to protect Blue Cross / Blue Shield because they are a ‘major campaign contributor and it’s the right thing to do. But,  mostly because they are a major campaign contributor. Via the Washington Times (emphasis added):

Senate Democratic leaders say last-minute changes to the health care bill include giving nonprofit health insurance companies an exemption from the excise tax on insurers, a revision pushed by Sen. Carl Levin, who is a major recipient of campaign contributions form mega nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield.

The excise tax or fee on health insurance companies was expected to bring in $6.7 billion to help pay for the nearly $1 trillion bill, but the complete exemption for nonprofits sought by Mr. Levin, Michigan Democrat, would cut the revenue in half.

You just know who is going to end up making the difference… The story continues:

Mr. Levin’s top campaign contributor from the 2005 into the 2010 election cycles was Blue Cross Blue Shield, with total contributions of $48,000, according to campaign finance data OpenSecrets.org.

Mr. Levin originally drafted the exemption language as an amendment to the bill. But the language was added as Senate leaders wrote the final package behind closed doors.

Snarky, friend of motorcitytimes.com from Feed Your ADHD has a great post (a must read) that ends with this:

Finally, you shall not pass this bill because you are supposed to be the voice of the people. You represent the state from which you were elected. You do not represent yourselves. You do not represent an arrogant and indecisive and thieving and weak president who is on the wrong side of what is right and on the wrong side of history. When it comes right down to it, you shall not pass this bill because, if you do, you can kiss your life in the District of Criminals goodbye; we, the right-wing teabagging mobsters living out here in flyover country, which curiously includes the states you represent, will make sure your careers of public indecent exposure will skid to an embarrassing and resounding and infinitely final halt in 2010 or 2012 or whenever you’re next election happens to be.

Count on it.

To be continued…

Technorati Tags: health care, News, round up