*Senator Ben Nelson got an unprecedented deal to force federal taxpayers to pick up 100% of the cost of Nebraska's Medicaid expansion--forever.
*Connecticut's Senator, Christopher Dodd, got a $100 million earmark for a hospital at the University of Connecticut.
*Vermont Senators Pat Leahy and Bernie Sanders, who had been threatening to oppose the bill from the Left, got an extra $250 million in Medicaid funding.
*In Florida, Senator Bill Nelson got three counties carved out of Medicare Advantage cuts that will happen everywhere else in the country.
*Of course we know about the "Louisiana Purchase" where Reid and Obama paid $300 million of our taxpayer dollars to the pet projects of Senator Landrieu to secure her vote.
The Dems are using OUR tax dollars to pay off Senators to vote for a package WE don't want. So infuriating...
The next steps in the process:
The second big vote to end debate on the health care takeover bill will occur around 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning.If Reid and Obama hold all 60 of their votes, then there will be one more cloture vote (to end debate) Wednesday evening and a final vote on passage of the bill sometime on Thursday.
After that, the House and Senate would have to hold a conference to work through the considerable differences in the House and Senate versions of the legislation.
Then, the health care takeover would have to pass both chambers again. That final battle would most likely take place in early January.
Update: Oh boy. I'm hearing tonight that the Dems have also slipped in a Senate rule change to require a supermajority vote to repeal Obamacare once its passed... Apparently the Senate parliamentarian ruled that it was a change in Senate "procedure," not rules, and allowed it.