Jake Tapper
ABC News
January 6, 2010
In his annual “State of the State” message today, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger withdrew his support for the health care reform measures Democrats are attempting to finish up in Washington, DC.
“While I enthusiastically support health care reform, it is not reform to push more costs onto states that are already struggling while other states get sweetheart deals,” the governor said.
The White House had in the past brought much attention to Schwarzenegger’s previous support for the effort.
“Health care reform, which started as noble and needed legislation, has become a trough of bribes, deals and loopholes,” Schwarzenegger said. “You’ve heard of the bridge to nowhere. This is health care to nowhere.”
He called for California’s congressional delegation to “either vote against this bill that is a disaster for California or get in there and fight for the same sweetheart deal Senator Nelson of Nebraska got for the Cornhusker State. He got the corn; we got the husk.”
In the Senate bill, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., secured a deal for the federal government to pick up his state’s share of the Medicaid expansion the bill legislates.
In his weekly address on October 10, 2009, President Obama heralded the “unprecedented consensus that has come together behind” health care reform, noting that Schwarzenegger and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg “came out in support of reform,” among others, saying “these distinguished leaders understand that health insurance reform isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but an American issue that demands a solution.”
