Baucus Pushes His Bill

Consider this another attempt to push a bill out of committee by sheer force of will, whether it works or not, is another question:

“The time has come for action, and we will act,” Mr. Baucus said.

Mr. Baucus said Wednesday that he very much hoped to win support from Republicans with whom he has been negotiating for months. But he said he firmly intended to “mark up” a bill the week of Sept. 21.“Irrespective of whether there are any Republicans, I will move forward,” Mr. Baucus said after meeting Wednesday with Democrats on the committee. “We have to move forward. If there are not any Republicans on board, I will move forward in any event.”

Mr. Baucus said his bill — the starting point for the committee’s work — would not include a new government-run health insurance program, or public option, because “a public option cannot pass the Senate.”With Mr. Baucus signaling his intentions, that will make five Congressional committees that will have advanced plans for health care reform.

In one indicator of the complexities of health care politics, the more liberal House is considered unlikely to pass a bill without a public option. The White House, which has favored a public option, has eased off recently in signaling that a public option is not a deal-breaker.In an interview on National Public Radio on Wednesday, the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, refused to be cornered when he was asked whether the president would veto a bill without a public option.

Interestingly enough the president acknowledges a point made on this blog about his failure to to provide a framework, and the resulting disarray within the democrat party:

With lawmakers of both parties dominating the spotlight hours before the president’s speech, Mr. Obama acknowledged, in an appearance Wednesday on ABC’s Good Morning America, that he had “probably left too much ambiguity out there” by allowing Congress to take the lead on health care legislation

.
Unfortunately for Baucus, it appears his ideas are already under full assault from all sides:

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said Mr. Baucus’s proposal to establish nonprofit insurance cooperatives was no more acceptable to him than the idea of a new government-run insurance program.“You can call it the government option,” Mr. McCain said. “You can call it a co-op. You can call it a banana. But the fact is, it is government intervention into the free marketplace, which will lead to crowding out, which over time will lead to government control of health care in America.”

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, criticized the co-ops from the other side of the political spectrum. Mr. Rockefeller said insurance co-ops had “a checkered history” and would not provide effective competition to private insurance companies.The idea of co-ops is “ill-defined and unexplained,” Mr. Rockefeller said. “They may work for farms and electricity, but they won’t work for health insurance.”

Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, said the Baucus plan was "deficient" because it would cut Medicare payments to private insurers that operate Medicare Advantage plans providing care to more than 10 million people."Anything that cuts senior citizens substantially is not going to fly," Mr. Nelson said as he entered a meeting of Democrats on the Finance Committee.

Senator Kent Conrad, a Democrat of North Dakota who also sits on the finance panel, said it was unrealistic for Mr. Baucus to think the bipartisan "group of six" could wrap up a quick agreement."The idea that there’s a drop-dead date or hour is absolutely counterproductive," Mr. Conrad said. However, Mr. Conrad welcomed pressure from the White House, saying, "If the president doesn’t push, things tend to drift."

The next two weeks starting with tonight should be interesting.