The great healthcare reform swindle; Harry Reid buys off senators for their votes

  Yesterday Ben Nelson, senator from Nebraska, won “concessions” from Harry Reid on the healthcare reform bill and announced that he would vote in favor of the bill. While Ben Nelson threw up a smokescreen by declaring that he would not support the bill because of the abortion language that it contained, he was really working behind the scene to “negotiate” a Medicare expansion cost deferment for his state. In other words, Nebraska will be wholly exempted from paying the higher Medicare costs that will go into effect once this bill is passed. 

  Senator Nelson may be the latest– and most prominent because his vote is the 60th vote– senator to acquire a Medicare exemption, he is not the only one to acquire monetary concessions for his state in return for his vote.

  Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, received $10 billion for the creation of healthcare centers, as well as additional Medicare funding.  Pennsylvania, New York and Florida also received exemptions from an increase in Medicare.

  And let us not forget the esteemed senator from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu, who proudly announced “the fix is in” after she secured a $300 million increase in federal Medicare funding.

  But the most obscene example is that of Harry Reid himself; at the beginning of this debate Harry Reid made sure that Nevada was exempt from the Medicare increases even while he was forcing this bill upon all the other states. Evidently, Harry Reid did not find this bill very palatable  for his own state, so he made sure his state was exempted. That’s the way to lead by example, Harry.

  Here is what Harry Reid had to say about this type of “negotiations”:

You’ll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That’s what legislating is all about. It’s compromise

  Throwing more and more money around until you get the votes you need is not legislating and it is not compromise, Harry, it is bribery.

   Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame these senators for making sure that they are acting in the best interest of their states and assuring that their constituents aren’t burdened with additional taxes to pay for this monstrosity, but it does lead us to the question; if this bill was so great in the first place, how come so many senators had to exempt their states from the burden of  the expanded costs when this bill is supposed to bring down healthcare costs?

  If this bill was as it is being sold to us, wouldn’t these senators have been on board from the beginning? The truth is, this bill is not going to reduce healthcare costs; and we can tell by the actions of Bernie Sanders, Mary Landrieu, Harry Reid, and Ben Nelson, among others, that this bill is actually going to cost taxpayers more money. There will be no healthcare savings in this bill; those of us who already have healthcare are going to see our taxes increased to pay for the healthcare of those who do not already have it– at least those of us who are in the states which are not exempted.

  This leads me to one last question; do the rubber stamp senators who were willing to go along with whatever bill Harry Reid put in front of them regardless of the damage it would do to the taxpayers of their states– such as my New Hampshire Senator, Jeanne Shaheen– feel stupid for being played for the fools that they are when they could have held out for a better deal?

  They should, they were played for suckers.