Word: nebraska
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...wonder that the sweetheart deal Senator Ben Nelson got for his home state of Nebraska as part of the Senate health reform bill has caused such consternation among his colleagues. In exchange for his vote, say critics, Nelson was promised that the Federal Government would pay 100% of the cost of expanding the Medicaid program in Nebraska. The 49 other states, by contrast, would have full federal funding for a few years but would eventually have to pick up part of the tab. As soon as word of the special treatment broke, the deal became known as the "Cornhusker Kickback...
...wake of the attacks, Nelson has done his best to deflect attention from the special arrangement. He insists the deal wasn't his idea, and, in a Jan. 15 letter to Senate majority leader Harry Reid, Nelson asked that special treatment for Nebraska be excluded from the final legislation. In the same letter, however, Nelson repeated something he has been saying since word of his special deal got around - that newly eligible Medicaid enrollees in all states should be fully and permanently paid for by the Federal Government. At first, this seemed like a crude and overly expensive solution...
Helping states by extending the Nebraska deal nationwide or by upping federal contributions to future Medicaid costs would certainly relieve some unwelcome pressure. Along with Schwarzenegger, who had previously been a reliable Republican proponent of Democratic health care reform, many other governors - including New York's David Paterson, a Democrat - have publicly protested the legislation on the basis of the Medicaid expansion, saying it amounts to an unfunded mandate. In addition, at least 13 state attorneys general have said Nelson's special deal is unconstitutional. But extending the Cornhusker Kickback to all 50 states would be a lot more than...
...Fight for Federal Aid Around the capital, the special deal that Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson got to secure his vital, filibuster-breaking 60th vote for the health care bill is now known as the Cornhusker Kickback. Even as political favors go, it's a whopper: if reform passes, the Federal Government will pay all of Nebraska's new Medicaid costs forever. And it's fueling envy and outrage in the other 49 states. Led by South Carolina's Henry McMaster, the attorneys general of 13 states - 12 Republicans and one Democrat - have signed on to a letter contending the Nelson...
...unfulfilled promise to open up health reform negotiations to a new level of transparency, took a swipe at the "number of things that [Obama] was for on the campaign trail" that have been left undone. Senator Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, ripped into her colleague Ben Nelson of Nebraska for "horse-trading" his vote on health care and called for the special Medicaid funding provisions he won in return for his support to be removed from the final legislation...