Harry Reid: I Ain't Voting for This Awful Baucus Bill

If Dingy Harry says it's crap, guess what? You might be looking at some crap.

No sooner than the Senate Finance Committee's chairman released his long-awaited health care bill today than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it's not good enough for Nevada.

Reid is concerned about the cash-poor state's inability to boost Medicaid spending as would be required under the bill.

“While this draft bill is a good starting point, it needs improvement before it will work for Nevada," Reid said in a statement. "During this time of economic crisis, our state cannot afford to shoulder the second highest increase in Medicaid funding."

Reid said he received assurance from the chairman, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, that the formula would be changed before the bill goes to committee next week.

"I spoke to the Chair of the Finance Committee and he assured me that this bill will be improved for Nevada," Reid said.

"Let me be very clear, I will not bring a health insurance reform bill to the Senate floor that is not good for Nevada.”

The "formula" will simply be changed to subsidize Nevada more at everyone else's expense, thus making it a "good deal for Nevada."

And... how about for everyone else doing the subsidizing?

Harry Reid was considerably more praising of Max Baucus' fine work in a national press release. He did allow there the bill needed to be "strengthened," but he sure didn't say it was "not good for Nevada" when speaking to non-Nevadans.

[Update/Edited Headline by ace; original post by PA follows.]

All the usual caveats, online, non-scientific, self-selected sample, yada yada yada.

Maybe Harry Reid had his staff feverishly stuffing the vote box on this one? He came out recently and said the Baucus plan was a non-starter and needed a lot of tweaking to be acceptable.

posted by Purp at 12:29 PM

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