Nebraska's Billionaire Senator Voted for Hospital Carnage

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Now independent union leader Dan Osborn, who nearly won a U.S. Senate race in 2024, is vying for his seat.

by David Dayen July 9, 2025

Dan Osborn, the independent Senate candidate from Nebraska who gave Republicans some headaches last year, outpacing Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign more than any non-Republican senator in the country, is coming back for another try, challenging Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) for Nebraska’s other Senate seat. As in 2024, there will be no Democratic candidate in the race, according to state Democratic Party chair Jane Kleeb. So Osborn will have a shot in a more treacherous year for Republicans to take down Ricketts.

The announcement video for Osborn literally begins with a scripted radio report, noting that “Billionaire politician Pete Ricketts votes for historic tax cut for the 1 percent.” The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) is front and center in Osborn’s messaging, as it will be in races against Republicans all over the country. The political moment and the pushback to the law fits with the populist stances Osborn took last year and wants to take again.

I “love the ideas America is supposed to stand for, and right now, I feel like that is under threat from corporations and billionaires carving it up for themselves,” Osborn told Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times.

Osborn will be able to use the fact that the first hospital closure as a result of OBBBA is right in his home state.

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-07-09-nebraskas-billionaire-senator-voted-for-hospital-carnage-dan-osborn/

Smart, and I hope he succeeds.

[BoRaGard]

1. Typical republicon

Sucking up his billions, pooping on the poor

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2. Their incentive for their very existence on earth.

This latest atrocity of a bill has convinced me that greed is a disease.