Several prosecutors probing health care deal

Several prosecutors probing health care deal

They question the constitutionality of ‘Nebraska compromise’

COLUMBIA, S.C. - The top prosecutors in seven states are probing the constitutionality of a political deal that cut a funding break for Nebraska in order to pass a federal health care reform bill, South Carolina's attorney general said Tuesday.

Attorney General Henry McMaster said he and his counterparts in Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Texas and Washington state — all Republicans — are jointly taking a look at the deal they've dubbed the "Nebraska compromise."

"The Nebraska compromise, which permanently exempts Nebraska from paying Medicaid costs that Texas and all other 49 states must pay, may violate the United States Constitution — as well as other provisions of federal law," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34551523/ns/politics-health_care_reform/

:rofl:

Politically this will be damaging!

You wish

Health care reform isn't Whitewater.

Would you be excusing it?

Let's say Bush had a recalcitrant senator who did not supoport the War in Iraq. And to buy their vote Bush told him that no National Guard Reservists from that state would be sent to Iraq .

Suppose that deal had come to light of day.

How would you react?

you have to make a deal with your alliances and nemesis, politicians make deals all the time, what majority are against
is when politicians make deals that does not benefits the interest of their constituents.

So, again, did Obama make a deal with a Senator? yes? no? :shrug:

Not only people have been turned off by Congress making the sausage of HCR, but they don't care for sausage or for the sausage maker.

All the other states are having problems with Medicaid, so I think the Medicaid bribe to Nelson may just resonate:



And we haven't gotten to the Constitutionality of having the federal government mandating health insurance, and having the IRS going after those that can't afford to buy it.

Ken Starr had something on the order of $70 million to spend investigating Clinton.

These state prosecutors have no standing, for starters, and unless their states are awash in cash (and they aren't) it won't take long for their governors or the public to demand that they stop grandstanding and pay attention to the jobs they were elected to do.

This will get fifteen minutes on Fox News and twenty threads on DU, and then it will go away.

but then again you never know....IOKIYAR.

It is one thing to give Louisiana $300 million in goodies to get Mary Landrieu's vote, quite another to have 49 states paying for Nebraska's share of Medicaid.

on treating states equally? The Tax Foundation has a very different take than you.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/92.html

BTW I lived in South Carolina for years and am well acquainted with your lead prosecutor Henry McMaster. It is Joe Wilson's great good fortune to have Henry in the state so he won't be the dumbest man in public office.

Let me assure you that any crusade led by your man Henry is likely to be as wrong headed as your description of federalism.

It's one thing when congress passes a bill to say, help victims of hurricanes, when a hand full of states are constantly being hit by them, and other states rarely get a hurricane strong enough to do any kind of real damage. The law still says if any state gets damage by hurricanes the federal government will help the state out.

It's been declared in the courts that when the federal government is giving money to the states and attaching strings to it (such as the economic stimulus bill) that as long as the states are allowed to op out of such money/federal requirements that it's constitutional.

It's also OK to do something like build a federal army base in the middle of nowhere in say North Dakota, or whatever Federal building they want, often stuff like this happens through earmarks.

The Nebraska deal on the other hand seems to be taking earmarks to the extreme, in how it saves them a bunch of money in medicaid costs but doesn't give other states the same opportunity, that's passing a law favoring one state over the other. And you can't explain it in ways like "well New York needs more money to spend on protecting themselves from terrorism because there's a lot of big landmarks in that state", or "well if our state had the same problem as Nebraska we'd get the same treatment based on the law as it's written".

It would seem that the remedy that could be granted is removing the compromise in the already passed bill. I don't think that it would repeal the entire law.

Nelson "brought home the bacon." The republicans didn't.