Word: baucus
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...Obama Administration for the next three years, and would likely be felt at the polls. Of course, that reality creates its own complications; if the party has little choice but to pass the bill by itself, progressives have even less patience for producing the kind of centrist bill that Baucus has been pushing. But Dems will probably stick with a centrist bill because no one builds majorities from the extreme left or right, and the holy grail(s) are those independent voters who sit smack in the middle. A CNN poll earlier this month found that for the first time...
...Baucus unveiled his bill last week. His Senate Finance Committee begins its formal markup of the legislation on Tuesday. And still no Republicans have signed on. Despite the Montana Senator's unshakable confidence that his push for bipartisanship will bear fruit, it is looking increasingly likely that Democrats will have to go it alone on health care - or at least virtually alone, with Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, the one moderate Republican who has remained open to supporting the bill. Walking down the corridors of the Senate on Sept. 17, I encountered a senior Senate Democratic aide whistling Simon & Garfunkel...
...borne by many middle-income people, especially municipal employees and unionized workers in states where insurance costs are high. What's more, if health-insurance costs continue to rise as they have, the tax would catch more and more insurance plans. In the interview on Thursday evening, Sept. 17, Baucus sounded sympathetic to those kinds of concerns and hinted that the threshold for taxation is likely to be raised. "Union plans are very expensive, and we have to be respectful of that," Baucus said...
...place where Baucus does not appear to be so flexible is on the question of adding a government-run public option to the measure as an alternative for providing coverage to the uninsured. While some liberals in the Senate have gone so far as to say they will not vote for a bill that does not include a public option, Baucus said it would not pass on the Senate floor. He said, however, that one "live possibility" is the idea of adding a so-called trigger that would create a public plan if private insurance companies fail to do enough...
...Holding his party together has become all the more important as the prospects for winning Republican support have become fainter and fainter. Baucus noted that even Charles Grassley, his good friend and the ranking Republican on his committee, is "under intense pressure from his side of the aisle to withdraw from the process" after months of bipartisan talks. Nonetheless, Baucus says, "I still think there'll be some Republican support at the end of the day." Say this for Max Baucus: he's not one to give up easily...