Reid Reveals Healthcare Bill
Late last night, a little sooner than we had expected, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid revealed his official plan for comprehensive healthcare reform. Our major concern has been whether or not the Democrats will have a coalition sufficient to block a Republican filibuster.
Senator Reid appears determined to address this uncertainty. According to an ABC News article:
On page 432 of the Senate bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”
The section spends two pages defining which states would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”
ABC News has been told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.
It follows that these kinds of legislative concessions would be prevalent in a bill that is so heavily contested. This makes the bill more likely to pass, though we still have our reasonable doubts.
Posted: November 19th, 2009 under Healthcare.
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