Reid protects home state at expense of others

Tuesday, 29 September 2009 08:56

You have to wonder what Barbara Boxer, Dick Durbin or Bill Nelson think about their Majority Leader cutting a "special deal" at the expense of their home states, as reported by the New York Times’ Robert Pear: The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, has secured a special deal protecting his state against the costs of expanding Medicaid under one of the major health care bills moving through Congress. Mr. Reid, a Democrat, complained about the impact on Nevada when the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, unveiled his bill on Sept. 16 ... Under Mr. Baucus’s original proposal, the federal government would have paid 87 percent of the new costs in Nevada. Under the modified version, the federal government would pay 100 percent of the new costs for the first five years ... The changes came at the expense of other states, including California, Florida and Illinois, which would see significant increases in state Medicaid spending under the new formula.

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