TPM: McCain Amendment a 'Big Fat Wet Kiss' to the Insurance Industry

[flpoljunkie]

Reid Spokesman: McCain Amendment A 'Big Fat Wet Kiss' To The Insurance Industry
Brian Beutler

December 1, 2009

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) went on quite a tear on the Senate floor. McCain is the author of the first proposed Republican amendment to the Senate health care bill, which, if passed, would send the legislation back to the Finance Committee and have it stripped of hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare savings. In all likelihood, that would kill the bill. But assuming it didn't, most of those savings come from ending over-payments to private insurers under Medicare advantage--something McCain himself proposed many times in the past, in addition to other, drastic cuts to Medicare.

Obviously, insurance companies are all for these over-payments, and Democratic leadership isn't letting McCain off the hook for doing their bidding. Jim Manley, senior spokesman to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, tells me, "the self-described foe of all earmarks is with one single amendment providing a big fat wet kiss for his friends in the insurance industry. All at the expense of millions of senior citizens."

In addition to running for President on a campaign of Medicare cuts, McCain has long cast himself as the scourge of pork-barrel spending. And while over-payments to private insurers aren't earmarks in a technical sense, the meaning won't be lost to observers on the Hill. Still, don't expect the GOP to lay off the flip flops on this issue any time soon.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/reid-spokesman-mccain-amendment-a-big-fat-wet-kiss-to-the-insurance-industry.php?ref=dcblt