This vote was on killing an amendment by John McCain, R-Ariz., that would remove items he called “sweetheart deals” that benefit certain states.  McCain suggested these items were added to a health care overhaul to win votes from certain lawmakers.  The amendment was offered to a  bill that would revise a major health care and student loan overhaul law cleared by the House the night before. A bill is “cleared” when one chamber of Congress passes a bill that has already been passed by the other chamber; once a bill is “cleared” it is sent to the president.  The law being changed aims to expand the availability of health care coverage for some 31 million Americans that are not currently covered.  

Specifically McCain’s amendment would remove the following items from the health care law:  additional Medicaid additional Medicaid funding for Hawaii hospitals; additional Medicaid funding for Tennessee hospitals; special Medicaid funding for Louisiana; special Medicaid funding primarily for reclassified hospitals in Michigan and Connecticut; $100 million for a Connecticut hospital; frontier funding provision providing Medicare money for Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wyoming; and a provision related to certain residents in Libby, Montana.

“I do not argue whether these are worthwhile or needed projects. I do argue the method in which they were inserted in this legislation—the one for Tennessee being as recently as yesterday or the day before—is the wrong process,” McCain said.

Baucus called McCain’s amendment “basically a political stunt at the expense of a lot of victimized people.”

“One is victims of Hurricane Katrina, another is victims of asbestos in Libby, MT; it is at the expense of rural Americans; it is an attempt to derail the bill and force the House to have to vote again, therefore force, probably, the Senate to go through another [large series of votes], go back and forth. It makes no sense whatsoever,” Baucus said.

By a vote of 54-43, the motion to kill the amendment was adopted.  All but three Democrats present voted to kill the amendment.  Every Republican present voted to kill the amendment.  The end result is that the amendment was killed and the health care reconciliation bill went forward without language that would have eliminated certain programs in the health care overhaul law targeted to benefit specific states.