COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - Less than 24 hours after the South Carolina Senate passed a bill that would exempt the state from the President's plan to require every American to buy health insurance, the bill was blocked Thursday.
Orangeburg Senator Brad Hutto proposed a last-minute amendment Thursday to kill the state's block on the president's health care plan.
Hutto argued the state would have say over medicare dollars and would control who gets the money and when. It worked.
"I don't think we should do that," said Hutto. "This is a Republican notion that they want to run medicare at the state level. Medicare is something that the seniors of South Carolina rely on and I don't think the Republicans should try and scare them."
The bill would allow South Carolina to enter into a pact with other states to exempt themselves from President Obama's health care plan. 12 state have already done it.
Berkeley County Senator Larry Grooms introduced the bill and says President Obama's plan would cost the state $2.5 billion in the first year.
"We would be able to disperse them in a manner that is best for South Carolina without all the federal strings attached," said Grooms.
Republicans say Hutto's wrong about the Medicare component.
"The compact that's being discussed here doesn't have anything to do with Medicare," said Senator Larry Martin of Pickens County.
State Attorney General Alan Wilson agrees with the senate bill. But he wants the President's plan killed before the state ever has to deal with it.
"That's what I've been spending the last four days doing," said Wilson. "Trying to opt out of Obama Care for all Americans."
Wilson, along with two dozens other states, spent the week arguing against the Obama plan in the US Supreme Court.
But Thursday after Hutto's Medicare argument, Republican senators pulled final reading on their bill to make sure Medicare isn't a part it.
"I voted to carry this bill over," said Lexington County Senator Jake Knotts, "So we can get some time to study this issue because that is a very big issue for a lot of people in this state."
The Senate plans to take another look at its national health care plan exemption bill in two weeks.
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