WHAT HAVE GILLIBRAND AND SCHUMER DONE FOR THE BIG APPLE? BUPKIS…NY POST
Updated: Tue., Dec. 22, 2009, 5:11 AM
A cipher in the Senate
Last Updated: 5:11 AM, December 22, 2009
Posted: 1:05 AM, December 22, 2009
Where were New York’s two US senators over the weekend, while Majority Leader Harry Reid was buying votes for his health-care bill?
Standing by while New York taxpayers’ pockets were picked — that’s where.
It’s obvious that Reid never would have secured the 60 votes he needed to pass his version of ObamaCare without bribery on a scale that would have made Boss Tweed blush.
Nebraska, Louisiana and Vermont got theirs — hundreds of millions worth.
But what about New York?
Bupkis.
To cite one example, Gov. Paterson warns that the state will lose between $1.1 billion and $1.25 billion a year under the Medicaid funding formula in the Reid/Obama bill.
Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska traded his vote for a Medicaid funding exemption for his state; Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana did ditto for her constituents.
But what have Chuck Schumer and his handmaiden, Kirsten Gillibrand, done so far to protect New Yorkers?
Also bupkis.
Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg told both senators three weeks ago that the Reid bill would “impose significant and disproportionate burdens on New York State and New York City.”
New York, an allegedly rich state, has long suffered under Medicaid — which provides health coverage to the poor — because the program reimburses states based on per capita income, rather than the poverty rate.
New York gets the lowest federal matching rate, 50 percent. Under the Senate bill, other states will see their reimbursements rise to an average 65 percent, while New York state’s will remain flat as a pancake.
Either Schumer or Gillibrand could fix that — Reid having demonstrated that he’ll pay just about anything for the decisive 60th Senate vote.
Schumer, as the Democrats’ No. 3, certainly has extra clout. But he’s angling to succeed Reid as majority leader, should Nevada voters open up the position in 2010. So he’s not about to be strong-arming colleagues he’ll need to reach his goal.
But what about Gillibrand?
Well, it seems that that mouse just don’t squeak.
It doesn’t seem to matter to her that a lot of the cash underwriting the Medicaid exemptions being dispensed by Reid will come from New York taxpayers.
Talk about adding insult to injury.
New York’s unelected, picked-by-Schumer junior senator — an incumbent twice removed from the redoubtable Daniel Patrick Moynihan — is a cipher.
Nothing more.
And clearly unlikely to become more.
To be sure, something as momentous as the bill under consideration should be above petty advantage-taking of the sort that occurred over the weekend.
But if that’s the way the game is to be played, then New York state needs some players.
It deserves better than what it’s getting — or not getting — from Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
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