After the deal Ben Nelson got for his state, getting the federal government to accept 100% of the cost of any Medicaid expansion, passed as part of the Senate health care bill, Republicans used it as an example of the “outrageous” backroom deals being put forward to get individual votes. In actuality, it’s not all that outrageous, but pretty much how Medicaid should be managed, as a purely federal program, so poor people in less generous states don’t have to suffer from less help in managing their health care options. It’s also telling that Nelson is getting ripped for a deal to ensure funding for health care for poor people, when the OTHER funding deal he got would make Mutual of Omaha – and pretty much only Mutual of Omaha – eligible for a tax exemption. Any liberal seriously criticizing the former and neglecting the latter needs to look at their priorities.

Nevertheless, the resultant firestorm has led Nelson himself to disown the policy, and now it’s being attacked on all sides to such a degree that it will probably be eventually dropped.

Sherrod Brown told a town hall audience in Toledo that Congress won’t stand for the provision:

Mr. Brown predicted Congress will repeal the special deal given to conservative Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska to win his vote. The bill’s backers agreed to have the federal government pay to expand Medicaid services in Nebraska after that portion of the bill takes effect in 2016.

“You can bet that won’t be law by the time that goes into effect,” Mr. Brown said.

Blanche Lincoln, from the other end of the Democratic ideological spectrum, sharply criticized the Nelson deal:

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln on Tuesday said a political deal that benefits Nebraska and may have clinched a lawmaker’s support for health care legislation should be removed from the bill.

The Democratic senator from Arkansas said she was disappointed about a provision in the Senate’s health care bill that will require the federal government to permanently pay the entire cost of Medicaid expansion in Nebraska, while only paying the costs of expansion in the other 49 states for three years [...]

“We’ll see what happens, whether it comes out or not. I think it’s appropriate that it should,” Lincoln said.

And Nebraska’s own governor, Dave Heineman, who Nelson claims asked for the federal participation in the first place, noted his opposition to the deal.

While Democratic leaders included in their legislation a provision that exempts Nebraska from paying for future Medicaid patients, in part to court Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-Neb.) much-needed cloture vote, Heineman told Fox News this morning that both he and his state’s residents “are opposed to this special deal.”

“The fact of the matter is, all we want is to be treated fairly and equally,” the Republican governor said. “And, you know, when you take a look at this health care bill it simply isn’t good for America. It’s higher taxes, skyrocketing premiums.”

Heineman is actually running away as fast as he can from something he proposed, because it’s unpopular with his state’s voters. I’ll note that he hasn’t said a word about the deal exempting Mutual of Omaha from taxation, however.

I’d be shocked if the deal survives.