Thread: 60-39

the Cloture vote to move health care Reform forward to a full debate was
60-39.
all republicans voted NO.
all Dems and Indy voted yes.

139 comments at link

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/ ... ff_on.html

Sen. Mary Landrieu holds off on taking health care stand, while pressing for aid for Louisiana
By Jonathan Tilove
November 20, 2009, 7:00AM

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., remained mum Thursday on whether she will deliver a crucial vote Saturday night to enable the Senate to debate health-care reform when it returns from the Thanksgiving holiday.

But Landrieu has already succeeded in adding a provision to the 2,074-page Senate version of the health care bill unveiled this week that would provide Louisiana between $100 million and $300 million in Medicaid funding in fiscal 2011.

While the Republican National Committee immediately charged that Landrieu has made a "backroom deal with (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid for her support of the government takeover of our health care system,'' Alan Levine, Louisiana secretary of health and hospitals in the Jindal administration, said that even those who oppose the bill ought to be grateful that Landrieu used her leverage to try to fix the state's so-called "FMAP'' problem.

"Look,'' said Levine, who has been lobbying the administration and Congress on the FMAP issue for eight months, "it's good to have a senator in a position to be able to make demands like that.''

"While I don't support the bill, she is doing the best she can to help the state, and she should be applauded,'' he said.

FMAP refers to the federal medical assistance percentages, or the percentages of state Medicaid spending the federal government covers.

Poorer states as measured by per capita income, like Louisiana, get more federal help. However, Louisiana is facing a huge reduction in federal assistance in fiscal 2011, because the FMAP percentage for that year is based on per capita income for calendar years 2006-2008, in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Louisiana experienced an unusual spike in per capita income in those years, in no small measure because of a large but temporary infusion of government, insurance and other recovery dollars pouring into the state.

The result is that Louisiana's FMAP percentage is going to drop 4 percentage points, from 67.61 percent in to 63.61, way more than any other state.

"That's huge,'' said Trinity Tomsic, a Medicaid analyst with Federal Funds Information for States, which analyzes the fiscal impact of federal budget and policy decisions on states.

But it gets much worse for Louisiana.

The stimulus plan increased the share of Medicaid paid by Washington for 27 months -- through the end of next year -- while sparing states any reductions in their FMAP formula in the meantime.

The net result is that the federal government is paying 81.48 percent of Louisiana's Medicaid costs, a figure that will plunge nearly 18 percentage points come Jan. 1, 2011. That would cost Louisiana, according to Levine, some $900 million a year for the ensuing three years. It would, he has warned, wreck the state's budget.

The Obama administration has insisted that only legislation can fix the formula, and on pages 432 to 436 of the Senate health care bill is Landrieu's answer.

Section 2006 is entitled, "Special Adjustment to FMAP Determination For Certain States Recovering From a Major Disaster.'' Louisiana is the only state that qualifies. Landrieu's remedy would halve any decrease in Louisiana's FMAP percentage for 2011 from the 72.47 percent in place before the stimulus was enacted. In other words, if the bill as written becomes law, Louisiana's FMAP percentage in 2011 would be 68.04 percent instead of dropping to 63.61.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of Landrieu's FMAP fix for Louisiana at $100 million for 2011, the only year it would likely apply.

But Landrieu's office was not clear on where CBO came up with that score, and Levine said the fix as written would more likely provide Louisiana -- and cost the federal treasury -- between $200 million and $300 million.

In the meantime, the House health care reform bill, which was enacted 220-215 on Nov. 7, would extend the stimulus support for Medicaid another six months until the end of June 2011, at a cost of $20.5 billion in federal Medicaid costs. That provision, however, does not now exist in the Senate bill.

Landrieu is one of four senators who hold the fate of health care reform in their hands. The others are Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Joe Lieberman, an Independent/Democrat from Connecticut.

If any one of them, in Saturday night's unusual session, lines up with the Republicans to keep the bill from coming before the Senate, Democrats will not have the 60 votes to proceed.

In recent days, there have been reports that Landrieu was on the verge of announcing her decision. It could come today; it could come earlier in the day Saturday. Or it could come, as it did two weeks earlier in the case of U.S. Rep. Anh "Joseph'' Cao, R-New Orleans, the only Republican in the House to vote for the health reform bill, in the waning moments of a dramatic Saturday night roll-call vote.

Historic health care bill clears Senate hurdle
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent
9 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Invoking the name of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.

The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.

The spectator galleries were full for the unusual Saturday night showdown, and applause broke out briefly when the vote was announced. In a measure of the significance of the moment, senators sat quietly in their seats, standing only when they were called upon to vote.

Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio missed the vote.

In the final minutes of a daylong debate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of trying to stifle a debate the nation needed.

"Imagine if, instead of debating whether to abolish slavery, instead of debating whether giving women and minorities the right to vote, those who disagreed had muted discussion and killed any vote," he said.

The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said the vote was anything but procedural — casting it as a referendum on the bill itself, which he said would raise taxes, cut Medicare and create a "massive and unsustainable debt."

For all the drama, the result of the Saturday night showdown had been sealed a few hours earlier, when two final Democratic holdouts, Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, announced they would join in clearing the way for a full debate.

"It is clear to me that doing nothing is not an option," said Landrieu, who won $100 million in the legislation to help her state pay the costs of health care for the poor.

Lincoln, who faces a tough re-election next year, said the evening vote will "mark the beginning of consideration of this bill by the U.S. Senate, not the end."

Both stressed they were not committing in advance to vote for the bill that ultimately emerges from next month's debate. Even so, their announcements marked a major victory for Reid and the White House in a year-end drive to enact the most sweeping changes to the nation's health care system in a half-century or more.

The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide subsidies to those who couldn't afford it. Large companies could incur costs if they did not provide coverage to their workforce. The insurance industry would come under significant new regulation under the bill, which would first ease and then ban the practice of denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

Congressional budget analysts put the legislation's cost at $979 billion over a decade and said it would reduce deficits over the same period while extending coverage to 94 percent of the eligible population.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul

http://landrieu.senate.gov/releases/09/2009B21A32.html

Landrieu statement on the senate floor

Better call it what it is... The Democrats and one Republican's healthcare law.

Loose your job in 2010!!!!

Dixie

The socialist feel the need to control everything. To keep their phony ecconomy afloat they will grab more and more control of things to keep propping up a failed concept.

We have been providing the money that backs their attempts to wrestle control.


Maybe this will help make the danger of fiat money clear.

Imagine you and me are setting across from each other. We create enough money to represent all of the world's wealth. Each one of us has one SUPER Dollar in front of him.

You own half of everything and so do I.

I'm the government though. I get bribed into creating a Central Bank.

You're not doing what I want you to be doing so I print up myself eight more SUPER Dollars to manipulate you with.

All of a sudden your SUPER Dollar only represents one tenth of the wealth of the world!

That isn't the only thing though. You need to get busy and get to work because YOU'VE BEEN STIFFED with the bill for the money I PRINTED UP to get YOU TO DO what I WANTED.

That to me represents what has been happening to the economy, and us, and why so many of our occupations just can't keep up with the fake money presses.

They have been beating us with our own stick!!!!1



My Mom told me that the reason socialism fails is because if everyone owns an equal share of everything, why work hard.

I think you can see many examples around you, why work at all.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/r ... vote=00353

YEAs ---60
Akaka (D-HI)

Baucus (D-MT), Bayh (D-IN)Begich (D-AK), Bennet (D-CO), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Brown (D-OH), Burris (D-IL), Byrd (D-WV)

Cantwell (D-WA), Cardin (D-MD), Carper (D-DE), Casey (D-PA), Conrad (D-ND)

Dodd (D-CT), Dorgan (D-ND), Durbin (D-IL)

Feingold (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Franken (D-MN)

Gillibrand (D-NY)

Hagan (D-NC), Harkin (D-IA)

Inouye (D-HI)

Johnson (D-SD)

Kaufman (D-DE, )Kerry (D-MA), Kirk (D-MA), Klobuchar (D-MN), Kohl (D-WI)

Landrieu (D-LA), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Lieberman (ID-CT), Lincoln (D-AR)

McCaskill (D-MO, )Menendez (D-NJ), Merkley (D-OR), Mikulski (D-MD),
Murray (D-WA)

Nelson (D-FL), Nelson (D-NE)

Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI), Reid (D-NV), Rockefeller (D-WV)

Sanders (I-VT), Schumer (D-NY), Shaheen (D-NH), Specter (D-PA), Stabenow (D-MI)

Tester (D-MT)

Udall (D-CO), Udall (D-NM)

Warner (D-VA), Webb (D-VA), Whitehouse (D-RI), Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---39
Alexander (R-TN)

Barrasso (R-WY), Bennett (R-UT), Bond (R-MO), Brownback (R-KS), Bunning (R-KY), Burr (R-NC)

Chambliss (R-GA), Coburn (R-OK), Cochran (R-MS), Collins (R-ME), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Crapo (R-ID)

DeMint (R-SC)

Ensign (R-NV), Enzi (R-WY)

Graham (R-SC), Grassley (R-IA), Gregg(R-NH)

Hatch (R-UT), Hutchison (R-TX)

Inhofe (R-OK), Isakson (R-GA)

Johanns (R-NE)

Kyl (R-AZ)

LeMieux (R-FL), Lugar (R-IN)

McCain (R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY), Murkowski (R-AK)

Risch (R-ID), Roberts (R-KS)

Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL), Snowe (R-ME)

Thune (R-SD)

Vitter (R-LA)

Wicker (R-MS)

Not Voting - 1
Voinovich (R-OH)

I thought the Republicans did a pretty good job in debating against this godawful piece of legislation. As we anticipated, they were steam-rollered by the Socialist-Democrats.

The whole thing is unbelievable, and for anyone that went to a socialist country before or after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the attitude was I get a bonus if I show up to work; while I work I steal everything I think I can sell on the black market; if you don't like cold salted potato chunks cooked in lard you can leave after you pay; if you have a dead spider in the middle of your salad or have to use the communal knife to cut food that hangs by the cash register, so what. So what, you can't buy anything decent unless an American guest takes you to the dollar store where the dollar buys you four times less than it does in the US. So what if you are sent to clean up Chernobyl wearing nothing more than a paper mask.
We Americans at least have the right to complain bitterly and I would hate to see that right ever diminished.

Originally Posted by Dixie

Better call it what it is... The Democrats and one Republican's healthcare law.

Loose your job in 2010!!!!

Dixie

KICK THEM ALL OUT!!!!!