If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em. That is the philosophy Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other liberals used to ensure that their takeover of the nation's health care system is enacted.

Both in the Senate and the House of Representatives, some lawmakers were able to use their votes on health care as bargaining chips to include special-interest amendments - often involving pork-barrel spending - in legislation. But recently, the tactic reached new levels of outrageousness.

Part of the Senate health care bill is a major expansion of the Medicaid program. Because it is funded partly by the federal government and partly by states, that growth will cost residents of most states dearly if the bill is enacted. That cannot be an attractive outlook for state officials in the many states where Medicaid budgets are already out-of-balance.

But some state officials won't have to worry. Included in the Senate bill is a provision providing federal assistance to Nebraska, Louisiana, Vermont and Massachusetts in paying for the Medicaid expansion.

It is no coincidence that all four states have senators whose votes Reid sought diligently in order to pass the bill.

The liberals had the 60 votes they need to push the measure through the Senate. The last holdout was Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. When he agreed to vote in favor of the measure, the deal was done.

According to The Associated Press, Nebraska will not just be getting some help in paying for the cost of Medicaid expansion. For that state, "the federal government is picking up 100 percent of the tab for the expansion, in perpetuity," the AP reported (our italics).

Many other buy-offs to gain the votes of fence-sitting senators are included in the bill - but Nelson's deal may well go down in the history books. He has managed to gain a federal subsidy for his state that will last forever.

Who pays?

Those of us who don't live in Nebraska. In addition to covering tens of millions of dollars a year in new Medicaid costs for our own states, we'll be covering Nebraska, too.

If the health care proposal is such a good idea, why did its proponents have to resort to bribes, arm-twisting, deceit and outright lies, and even plans to vote on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so senators couldn't go home and get an earful from their constituents about the bill?

The answer to that says a lot about what's wrong with this bill.