Second of two parts
Re “Time for One Last Caper by Unrequited JFK Wannabe”
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Secretary of State John Kerry
Before Kim Strassel’s breakthrough essay in last Friday morning’s Wall Street Journal, hardly any Americans outside of Washington and Massachusetts realized what a scoundrel Secretary of State John Kerry, a Golden Boy of the Obama administration, is in practice.
Her staggering revelation is unlikely to ever reach print in left-wing newspapers in New York, Boston, Washington and Los Angeles, so abysmally embarrassing would it be for the Left.
Three years ago last winter when liberals wildly were cheering for ObamaCare to be passed blindingly fast, sans examination, by Congress – without a single Republican vote – Mr. Kerry, in his 25th year as a senator from Massachusetts, committed a hideously despicable ethical violation.
Sunlight has not yet shined on Mr. Kerry’s act for two reasons: (a) As a leftist, he reliably can count on media human shields to hide negative behavior, and (b) the deed is too technical and complex to popularly catch fire.
Drawing entirely from the blue ribbon Ms. Strassel’s prizeworthy account, here is what happened:
In the context of bi-partisan blowback against the pending implementation of ObamaCare, follow Mr. Kerry’s stealthily twisting path.
One of the sternest criticisms of the new law is the reimbursement that Medicare pays to hospitals for the services of doctors and others.
Pre-ObamaCare, each state held its own bucket of money. It was required to adhere to an array of regulations, one that was particularly watched: Urban hospitals must be reimbursed for wages at least at the levels of state rural hospitals, Ms. Strassel reports.
We Were Too Distracted
Just before ObamaCare was passed in a nationally chaotic environment where hollering conservatives and liberals slung a blizzard of sloppy accusations at each other, we were too distracted. No one noticed Sen. Kerry crawling along the edge of the room.
Ms. Strassel: “Enter Mr. Kerry who slipped an opaque provision into the Obama health law to require that Medicare wage reimbursements now come from a national pool of money rather than state allocations. The Kerry kickback didn’t get much notice since it was cloaked in technicality and never specifically mentioned Massachusetts. But the senator knew exactly what he was doing.”
And here is the story’s punchline:
“You see ‘rural’ hospitals in Massachusetts are in a class all their own. The Bay State has only one, a tiny facility on the tony playground of the super rich, Nantucket. Nantucket College Hospital’s relatively high wages set the floor for what all 81 of the state’s urban hospitals also must be paid. And since these dramatically inflated Massachusetts wages are not getting sucked out of a national pool, there’s little left for the rest of America. Clever Mr. Kerry.
“The change has allowed Massachusetts to raise its Medicare payout by $257 million, forcing cuts to hospitals in 40 other states. The National Rural Hospital Assn., and 20 state hospital associations in January sent a panicked letter to President Obama, noting that the Massachusetts manipulation of the program would hand that state $3.5 billion over the next 10 years at the expense of Medicare beneficiaries everywhere…”
Members of Congress, Right and Left, are fighting back, so far without results.
How could this lethal provision have sneaked through? Easy – when no one reads voluminous bills that are railroaded through, the newest example being this week’s saggingly overloaded immigration bill, which should reach the trash heap but may not.
A Democrat, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, instructively a major backer of ObamaCare, is taking names, rounding up like thinkers and pushing for a binding vote to overturn the Kerry monster. We wait for the score.
