Freedom Line Blog

It’s a well known fact that Majority Leader Harry Reid is scrambling to find the 60 votes necessary to move his government-run health care bill to the Senate floor.  Indeed, Reid is doing everything in his power to “encourage” the three or four Democrats supposedly on the fence to vote “yea” tomorrow night on the motion to proceed on the legislation.

And when we say everything, we mean E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reports:

On page 432 of the Reid 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.” 

I am told the section applies to exactly one state:  Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing [what] could be written with a single world:  Louisiana.

The price tag for this provision?  Karl writes, “According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.”

Read the full story, complete with the actual bill language, here.