Wack-A-Mole

by digby

Golly, it looks like somebody saw Lieberman change the goalposts and decided to throw up some new roadblocks:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) worked Friday to secure the needed votes to pass sweeping health-care overhaul legislation, as Republicans threatened to use parliamentary tactics to drag out debate of the measure.

Reid met with Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.), whose vote could give him enough support–a total of 60 votes–to prevent a Republican filibuster of the measure.

Nelson remained noncommital about the bill, saying that “hopefully we’re making progress.”

“As I’ve said, there’s always a lot of room between the bid and the ask, and we’re seeing if we can close that gap,” he said.

In the negotiations, Nelson was raising a proposal to exempt nonprofit insurance companies from a proposed tax on the industry, individuals familiar with the negotiations said. It wasn’t clear how far the idea would get.

In the give and take, he was also seeking ways to ease the financial burden that would be imposed on his home state under the bill’s proposed expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor. Among the ideas on the table were proposals to raise the federal government’s share of financing of the program in Nebraska, but no decision was made on the topic.

In a letter to Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman on Wednesday, Nelson stated he has proposed an “opt-in” provision for the bill’s proposed Medicaid expansion that would allow states not to expand Medicaid. Since states pay a share of Medicaid costs, some governors complain that it has proven burdensome on their budgets.

I heard that Obama had Olympia Snow on the phone for an hour. Does anyone know what she wants now? Of course if she gets what she wants, there’s every reason to believe that King Joseph will steep back up and back Nelson.

And let’s not leave out some of the others. Why should they be left out of all this fun?

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