Specter switched his vote on Medicare bill after last-minute deal with White House.
By on Jul 1st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Specter switched his vote on Medicare bill after last-minute deal with White House.
On Thursday, a bill “that would have blocked a 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors fell just one vote short of the 60 it needed for passage.” Politico reports that the White House pushed vulnerable senators to switch their votes in some “eleventh-hour” dealings. Officials promised Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), who has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease and previously supported a similar Medicare bill, “an administrative fix to increase Medicare reimbursements for oncologists.” Specter denied that there was a “quid pro quo.”
Update The WSJ notes the failure to pass the bill “will create a backlog in Medicare’s claims processing.”
View Most Popular
Advertisement
What We're About
What We're Fighting For
What We're Fighting Against
Featured
Subscribe to the Progress Report
Topic CloudView topics sorted by popularity
Afghanistan
Bachmann
Beck
Boehner
Bush
Business
Cheney
Civil Rights
Congress
Corporate Ethics
Dobbs
Education
Election
Energy
Environment
Ethics
Fox News
Gingrich
Global Warming
Health Care
Immigration
International Relations
Iraq
Justice
LGBT
Lieberman
Limbaugh
McCain
Media
Military
O'Reilly
Obama
Palin
Pelosi
Politics
Race
Radical Right
Religion
Steele
Stimulus
Tea Parties
Technology
Terrorism
Veterans
Women's Rights
Visit Our Affiliated Sites
Reports
In-depth studies on select topics
Got a hot tip?
Have a hot news tip? We'd love to hear from you. Use the form below to send us the latest.
ArchivesBlog Roll
Hmmmm, does that sound like Specter traded away benefits for the American people, only to be given the benefit he wanted the most? American people: 0, Specter: 1.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:09 pmWell, well, well…I guess Bush threatened to campaign for Specter unless he towed the Bushco line.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:14 pmWow. I had no idea Specter represented the White House.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:18 pmWhite House: “here is the quid”
July 1st, 2008 at 12:21 pmSpeculcum: “and this is the pro quo”
Good ole’ less gov’t for the disabled and elderly.
Yet more gov’t for war and killing people.
¶ AIO
July 1st, 2008 at 12:34 pmSo, waterboarding is effective.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:37 pmIf they can’t privatize Medicare, they will do the next best thing; make it so no doctors will accept it.
That was the plan from the start. If they can’t funnel money into the pockets of their healthcare CEO’s, they will reform Medicare by tearing it down from the service side.
More than one way to screw the populace. Who needs those damned old people anyway? They’ve lived long enough as it is. If we can manage to tear every last penny from their cold, dead hands, then the Goopers have done their job.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:42 pmUncle Ho @#4
July 1st, 2008 at 12:43 pm…but where’s the blue dress?
Arlen, I guess, is a special kind of elderly person. If the vote was to increase premium costs 10% for U.S. Government employees, I’m sure he would have applied his vote evenly.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:44 pmSpecter and Murphy the two biggest remaining PA mistakes. I hope they are ready to go the way of Sanscrotum.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:47 pmThere is ALWAYS a quid pro quo with this Administration…
…anyone see the boatload of food that North Korea received yesterday? Just days after blowing up a nuclear reactor? No connection though, right?
July 1st, 2008 at 1:03 pmRiiiigggghhhhttt.
I still don’t know why Kennedy couldn’t have been there to cast his vote, presumably for cloture. He’s not incapacitated, yet. I mean, at what point do we need a special election, or are you going to serve? There was a senator who voted for the Civil Rights bill in the 60s who was wheeled into the chamber and could only BLINK HIS EYE (’aye’), so Teddy has no excuse.
July 1st, 2008 at 1:09 pmSo that makes 30.6% that won’t be covered by medicare.
These healthcare gap plan lobbiest are making a killing.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:01 pmHow did it happen that in the 109th Congress with Republicans in charge, it took only 51 votes (or 50 + Cheney) to get bills through the Senate, whereas in the supposedly Democratic-controlled 110th it takes 60?
If the Democrats win even more seats in November, will we then find that it mysteriously takes 75 or something?
July 1st, 2008 at 2:04 pmBy further cutting medicare payments to doctors, they are also guaranteeing that more doctors will refuse to take medicare patients. My doctor will only take Medicare if you were already her patient before going on Medicare. As she put it, Medicare is a huge money-losing proposition for doctors.
Bush has been starving doctors and hospitals of Medicare payments ever since he took office. It is his way to try to privatize Medicare by forcing recipients into having to buy the private for profit health industry’s “medi-gap” insurance.
I really do wish that Obama, when he takes office, would just put each and every American on Medicare and make sure that doctors and hospitals are reimbursed fairly for their services. That would be an instant way to single payer health care. Then, if the rich want extra benefits, they can pay for their own “deluxe” coverage with the for profit health insurance companies. There probably won’t be many of them left because they would lose the majority of their victims by a single payer system.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:05 pmFool Zero Says:
How did it happen that in the 109th Congress with Republicans in charge, it took only 51 votes (or 50 + Cheney) to get bills through the Senate, whereas in the supposedly Democratic-controlled 110th it takes 60?
That is because any time the Democrats threatened to filibuster, the Republicans threatened to nuke the filibuster forever. It’s really too bad the Democrats didn’t take them up on their offer. If they had, they would be passing their bills today rather than caving to the Republican’s filibuster threats. It is positively disgusting how easily the Democrats cave. Why don’t they make the Republicans actually filibuster the bill, you know, standing there reading the phone book for days on end. If the Democrats made them filibuster, it would be the first last and only filibuster we would see from the Republicans.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:10 pmAnother Arlen saying one thing and voting the other way with the WH. What a auprise.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:10 pmThe man is shameless. Sorry he is ill, but that is no excuse for his voting record.
specter is such a scumbag. he makes all the right noises when the attention is on him; but the minute the shades are drawn that pig is double-dealing and back-stabbing whoever gets in the way of issues that benefit him.
i sincerely hope that some family member of his gets denied the medical care they so desperately need to stay alive.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:51 pmSpecter – he’s is among the worst in the Senate because he often leads one to believe he will do the right thing and then he pulls out the rug from under you at the end.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:56 pmNow we hear that he has protected the doctors who are caring for HIM, but he has thrown other doctors under the bus.
People like him are lower than snakes.
This is a braxen attempt to curtail Medicare services – privatization isn’t selling, so they will attempt to succeed by an oblique attack.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:59 pmThe low-lifes in the White House are matched only by the low-lifes in the Republican congress. May they all die miserable, painful deaths.
brazen — not braxen —- sorry
July 1st, 2008 at 2:59 pmWhere are the medicare recepants suppose to get the extra money? Everything has gone up.
Expect to see more homeless sick people.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:15 pmMax; GOOD question. Just where IS that blue dress now? Was it returned to its owner? Or is it in the national archives?
Or is it in some thrift store? Was it kept as a momento? Were they able to get the stains out?
heh, heh. This raises more questions than the Watergate inquiry.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:44 pmBilbo, I wrote almost exactly the same thing Months ago to Reid. MAKE THEM ACTUALLY FILIBUSTER! stop letting them off with the “threat” Make them do the work. After a couple of all-nighters I bet they’ll be a lot more amenable…
July 1st, 2008 at 4:47 pmHas anyone really expected Scumbag Specter to be anything other than a useless RePugniScum phuckwad??
I never did…He’s a lying co(ksucker from day one (Warren Commission phuckwad) and nothing changes with this bastard EVER!!!!!
July 1st, 2008 at 7:00 pmI guess he must have thought the medicare recipients and the doctors were spying on his beloved Philadelphia Eagles.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:40 pm