Looks like the only consensus was to penalize Uninsured Americans. What, exactly, health care plan that passed covers the uninsured?

From www.cnn.com:

Democrats call it compromise. Republicans call it bribery. But both sides agree that special deals are why the Senate is on track to pass a health care bill by Christmas.

It wasn’t clear whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had the support needed to move ahead with his chamber’s health care bill until Sen. Ben Nelson, the last Democratic holdout, had a change of heart this weekend.

He agreed to support the bill in return for compromise language on federal funding for abortion and more money for his home state of Nebraska.

As a part of the deal, the federal government will pay 100 percent of Nebraska’s tab indefinitely for expanding Medicaid for low-income Americans.

Despite the benefit for his state, Nelson’s fellow Nebraskan, Republican Sen. Mike Johanns, was not pleased.

“There should be no special deals, no carve-outs for anyone in this health care bill; not for states, not for insurance companies, not for individual senators,” he said.

“All of the special deals should be removed. If the bill cannot pass without carve-outs, what further evidence is needed that it is bad policy,” he said.

Reid, however, had no qualms about the sweeteners.

“If you will read the bill … you will find a number of states are treated differently than other states. That’s what legislation is all about: compromise,” he said. “We worked on different things to get a number of people’s votes.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, is another lawmaker who benefited from the art of compromise. When party leaders dropped the public option, Sanders said he was unsure if he’d vote for the bill.

But after his home state got some extra help for Medicaid, and Democrats gave $10 billion to his pet project — community health centers nationwide — Sanders decided to vote in favor of the bill.

Click the link to read the entire article: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/22/health.care.favors/index.html

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1. Garretot Says:
   December 23rd, 2009 at 11:00 am

   ,
   Thank you
   Garretot

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   December 24th, 2009 at 1:53 am

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