Obama's new health care proposal keeps Louisiana Medicaid provision(Louisiana Purchase)

Senator Mary Landrieu ^ | 2/22/10 | Jonathan Tilove, The Times-Picayune

[mdittmar]

President Barack Obama unveiled his new health care proposal Monday, jettisoning a special Medicaid deal for Nebraska in the Senate bill, but leaving untouched a section crafted to help keep Louisiana from suffering a steep drop in federal Medicaid money as a delayed consequence of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who had led the effort to include the "FMAP fix" in the Senate bill, said she was "extremely pleased and proud that the president has included the provision I and several members of the delegation crafted that will help Louisiana, and other states, manage the costs of Medicaid in the wake of a catastrophic disaster. As I've said many times, this was not a special deal for me. It was a fair deal for the people of Louisiana."

The Obama administration also chose not to tinker with the language in the Senate bill with regard to prohibiting federal financing for abortion, language that is less stringent than that in the House version. If the Senate language prevails, it would almost certainly cost the final bill the vote of New Orleans Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, the only Republican in either house to support the overhaul measures.

The 11-page proposal, posted on the White House Web site, represents the most concise articulation of what the president would like to see accomplished in the health care legislation.

For most of the Republicans in the Louisiana delegation, the only question Monday was whether the new Obama plan was as bad as what House and Senate Democrats produced, or worse. They all agreed that releasing the new plan days before Thursday's bipartisan health care summit indicates that the administration was, in the words of Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, "disingenuous" about reaching across the partisan divide on the issue.

"He's taken a too-expensive Senate plan and made it even more so," Cassidy said.

"It is clear he has no intention to negotiate in good faith when his proposal is nearly identical to the House and Senate bills that were overwhelmingly rejected by the American people, and this summit will only create an excuse to try to blame Republicans for the failure of a government takeover of health care," Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, said.

"Unfortunately," said Sen. David Vitter, R-La., "the president hasn't been listening to the American people the past year because his latest proposal is nothing more than a blend of the bills passed by the Senate and House last year, policies the American people have overwhelmingly rejected."

Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, one of 39 Democrats to vote "no" on his party's bill in the House, greeted the president's proposal cautiously.

"I am interested in hearing more details about the president's proposal and will be following closely the bipartisan health care summit this week," he said. "We need fiscally responsible solutions that will make health care more affordable and available for Louisiana families and small businesses. Democrats and Republicans need to work together to solve the real problems middle class families are facing."

Landrieu, who came late to backing the Senate bill but has been among its most strenuous advocates since, said, "Despite all the criticism and empty rhetoric surrounding health care reform, the proposal put forth today is a reasonable plan to reduce the long-term cost of our health care system."

The release of the Obama proposal comes after Democrats in the House and Senate enacted separate versions of health care legislation late last year, and a month since Republican Scott Brown's victory in the special Senate election in Massachusetts derailed efforts by Democrats to iron out differences between the two bills and send it to Obama for his signature.

The president's plan did not attempt to revive the "public option" for a government-run plan, though White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said the president continues to believe it would be a good idea that would help drive down costs. The White House proposal does call for setting up a "new competitive health insurance market giving tens of millions of Americans the exact same insurance choices that members of Congress will have."

It also calls for creating "commonsense rules of the road to keep premiums down and prevent insurance industry abuses and denial of care."

The White House announcement touting the new proposal noted that the plan was for "eliminating the Nebraska FMAP provision and providing significant additional federal financing to all states for the expansion of Medicaid."

The Nebraska provision -- sometimes called "the Cornhusker kickback" and intended to help gain the crucial 60th vote of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., for the Senate bill -- would have covered, in the sole case of Nebraska, the state share of expanded Medicaid coverage in perpetuity.

The Louisiana provision, derided by some as "the Louisiana Purchase," was intended as a one-time, partial fix for a sharp drop in federal Medicaid money coming to the state because of a temporary surge in per-capita income in Louisiana as recovery dollars flooded into the state in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Asked how and why the administration distinguished between the Nebraska and Louisiana deals, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the latter was not a "carve out" for one state because it "covers any state" where "the president has declared a major disaster."

In order to qualify, a state would have to face an FMAP decline of a magnitude that would include at this time only three states: Louisiana, North Dakota and Hawaii. The legislation also requires that the state experienced a major disaster in the past seven years in which every county or parish in the state was eligible for FEMA public assistance. That would eliminate North Dakota, leaving only Louisiana and Hawaii, where all four of its counties were eligible for aid after the 2006 earthquake.

[traditional1]

I would suggest an Amendment that would hold ALL of those in Congress and even the Poser in the White House PERSONALLY LIABLE for any cost over-runs, and/or to make up ALL the dollars OVER THE FORECASTED COST to achieve the "savings" they say they are creating.

LET THEM BE ACCOUNTABLE WITH THEIR PERSONAL FINANCES to pay all costs not cited in the Bill.