Word: beginnings
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...themselves. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, who had breezily told reporters as recently as June 16 that he would have a bill ready by the end of the week, suddenly announced on June 17 that he had decided to "slow things down" and that his committee may not begin the formal process of drafting its bill until after the July Fourth congressional recess. If that's the case, it is hard to see how he can meet his other goal of seeing the legislation pass the Senate by the end of July. (See pictures of the Cleveland Clinic...
...together a major overhaul of the health-care system, and no one on Capitol Hill or in the White House these days is under any illusions that it will come easy. But as the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on Wednesday becomes the first to begin the process of formally drafting a bill - one that members will call the Affordable Health Choices Act - it's already clear that the task will be that much tougher because of the absence of the committee's, and the issue's, driving force...
...that sets the tone for the debate that will follow on the Senate floor. On the contrary, it now increasingly looks like the HELP Committee will be playing a subordinate role in the debate to the Senate Finance Committee, whose chairman, Max Baucus of Montana, says he expects to begin the markup (or formal drafting) of his own, likely more centrist, bill next week. Also likely to fall to Baucus and the Finance Committee will be the most difficult question of all about health reform...
...committee is what's still missing from the draft legislation. Committee chair members on Capitol Hill generally prefer to go into markup with a version of a bill that is as close as possible to what they expect to see in the finished product. However, the HELP Committee will begin its work with one that is missing many of its central components. Among the contentious items still to be worked out are the shape of a government-run public health plan to compete with private insurance and an expected requirement that nearly every employer provide health coverage for its workers...
...begin to understand the situation, the outside world should start by ignoring the standard cliché that the two communist governments are "as close as lips and teeth." Over the years, says Bruce Klingner, a senior analyst at Washington's Heritage Foundation and a former deputy chief for the Koreas in the CIA's analysis section, "the talk in both capitals about the other has often been pretty scathing." Even during the Cold War, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il's father, would routinely play the Soviet Union and China off each other. But while China and North Korea have...