Democrats Purchase Louisiana All Over Again — at Higher Price

Monday, November 30, 2009 12:05 PM
By: Michael Reagan

Unsurprisingly, President Obama recently realized early legislative success in pursuit of his massive government-heavy healthcare program.

Sen. Harry Reid pushed the initial legislation to the Senate, giving our representatives very little time to review the bill in advance of the first vote opening further debate.

In attempting to clear this initial procedural hurdle, Reid and the Obama administration could not find the support of a single Republican senator and also were having difficulty in rounding up even the necessary 60 votes, all of which would have to be Democrats, to advance the legislation.

Now, most taxpayers would hope that, in pursuit of the 60 votes, the administration and Senate Democrats would use the merits of the legislation as the basis for their swaying of members of their own party. Sadly, that simply is not the case.

Rather, bribes in the form of earmarks ended up being the carrot that lured in the final votes on a critical piece of legislation that may impact the future of our nation’s healthcare. . . and our nation’s debt.

Take, for example, Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, one of the last Senate holdouts who joined other Democrats only hours before the controversial vote. What drew Landrieu to vote in support of the legislation? Was it her comfort with the cost, or perhaps her satisfaction that the concerns of her constituents had been satisfied?

Sadly, the answer lies with a seemingly minor provision added to the healthcare legislation, which takes two pages to write up a description of which states would qualify for an influx of 100 million additional dollars in federal Medicaid subsidies, using phrases such as “certain states recovering from a major disaster.â€