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Ben Nelson to Henry McMaster: 'Call off the dogs'
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| Contributor | Eddie |
| Last Edited | Eddie Jan 03, 2010 02:06am |
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| Category | News |
| Author | ALEX ISENSTADT |
| News Date | Friday, January 1, 2010 10:35:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) reached out Thursday evening to South Carolina GOP Attorney General Henry McMaster, the leader of a group of 13 Republican state attorneys general who are threatening to file suit against the Senate health care bill, and urged him to forgo any legal action, POLITICO has learned.
According to a copy of a memo sent by McMaster’s chief of staff to other GOP state attorneys general detailing the call, Nelson asked McMaster to “call off the dogs,” a reference to recent threats by the state AGs to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Medicaid provision in the bill that benefits Nebraska at the expense of other states.
Under the terms of a deal Nelson cut with Senate leaders to secure his crucial vote for the health care package, Nebraska would be exempted from having to pay for the coverage of its new Medicaid enrollees—leaving the federal government to pick up the tab. The deal is expected to cost the federal government $100 million over the next 10 years.
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The memo, written by McMaster Chief of Staff Trey Walker, explains that Nelson told McMaster that the Medicaid deal had not been his idea, and that the same Medicaid exemption would be extended to other states.
“Senator Nelson insisted that he had not asked for the Cornhusker Kickback to be placed in the U.S. Senate version of the health care bill to secure his vote. Senator Nelson told the attorney general that it was simply a ‘marker’ placed in the U.S. Senate version of the bill and assured the attorney general that it would be ‘fixed,’ says the memo.
The document goes on to say: “Senator Nelson said it would be ‘fixed’ by extending the Cornhusker Kickback (100% federal payment) on Medicaid to every state.”
Senate Democratic leaders have made no reference to a plan to expand the Nebraska deal to the remaining 49 states — a move that would be prohibitively expensive to the federal government and raise serious questions ab |
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