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Senators resist Obama over projects in health bill
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| Contributor | particleman |
| Last Edited | particleman Mar 13, 2010 09:22am |
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| Category | News |
| Author | ALAN FRAM |
| Media | Website - Yahoo News |
| News Date | Saturday, March 13, 2010 02:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | President Barack Obama says he wants projects helping specific states yanked from the health care bill Congress is writing. Democratic senators, being senators, beg to differ.
The Senate-approved health measure lawmakers hope to send to Obama soon would steer $600 million over the next decade to Vermont in added federal payments for Medicaid and nearly as much to Massachusetts. Connecticut would get $100 million to build a hospital. About 800,000 Florida seniors could keep certain Medicare benefits. Asbestos-disease victims in tiny Libby, Mont., and some coal miners with black lung disease or their widows would get help, and there are prizes for Louisiana, the Dakotas and more states.
"We're going to do what we have to do to get a bill out of the House and Senate," said James Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. As for Obama's wish list of deletions: "We'll certainly keep it in mind as we pull together a final bill."
That tepid salute underscores the prickliness with which many senators have greeted what they consider Obama's meddling in their business and raises questions about how successful the president will be in erasing the special projects from final legislation.
Many Democrats, particularly House moderates facing tight re-election battles this fall, are eager to dissociate themselves from such spending.
Obama's targeting of state projects is going over poorly in the Senate.
Take Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who helped win extra Medicaid money for his state in the Senate health bill. "What I told Harry Reid is that Vermont does the right thing, and I don't want Vermont to be penalized for doing the right thing," Leahy said.
The White House asked lawmakers to delete $100 million to build a public hospital in Connecticut inserted by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. But the money will remain in the final bill, according to people familiar with Democratic negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose the |
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