Baucus & Butthead.

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Your Public Option Has Been Maxed Out.

Drug companies and health insurers love Senator Baucus to the Max...

From Politico:

Wendell Potter, the former Cigna executive-turned-whistleblower, told a small group of reporters Monday that the Baucus health care plan is an “absolute gift” to the industry.

“The Baucus framework is just an absolute joke,” said Potter, Cigna’s former head of corporate communications who has been speaking out against insurance industry practices. “It is an absolute gift to the industry. And if that is what we see in the legislation, (America’s Health Insurance Plans chief) Karen Ignagni will surely get a huge bonus.”

Potter said the proposal would not provide affordable coverage. It gives the industry too much latitude to charge higher premiums based on age and geographic location, fails to mandate employer coverage, and pushes consumers into plans with limited benefits, Potter said.

Private insurers “want to have ‘benefit design flexibility.’ Those are three very worrisome words,” Potter said at a briefing arranged by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. “By being able to have benefit design flexibility, they will be able to design plans that are so limited that more and more people will be in the ranks of the uninsured.”

Several Senate Finance Committee Democrats have raised similar concerns, saying the health care overhaul could mandate Americans to buy coverage that isn’t affordable and doesn’t offer adequate coverage.

This issue has dominated behind-the-scenes discussions, and several members pledged Monday night to address it with amendments in the Finance Committee markup next week.

"It's very clear, at this point in the debate, the flashpoint is all about affordability,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “I personally think there’s a lot of heavy lifting left to do on the affordability issue.”

Finance Chairman Max Baucus said the bipartisan group was "doing our very best to make an insurance requirement as affordable as we possibly can, recognizing that we’re trying to get this bill under $900 billion total.”

I feel like kicking something over the Democrats' inability to use their majority to help the majority. But I don't have health insurance, so I'd better not.

More here and here.

Butting Heads With Buttheads.

Ah, the putrid stench of bipartisanship!

From the New York Times:

For the moment, at least, Max Baucus has come up short.

Mr. Baucus, the Montana Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee who has led a months-long effort to develop bipartisan legislation to overhaul the nation’s health care system, is expected to unveil his plan Wednesday morning with Republicans not yet on board.

The Finance Committee’s top Republican, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa – who is one of the so-called bipartisan six — issued a statement on Tuesday evening chastising the Democratic leaders and the White House for pushing forward on a bill that he said was not ready and that he could not yet support.

In many ways, however, the legislative dance is just starting.

Democrat and Republican aides alike say they expect the negotiations among the bipartisan six to continue until the Finance Committee begins formal proceedings on the health care legislation sometime next week. A deal with Mr. Grassley is still possible.

Once Mr. Baucus puts out his proposal, the committee will go over it in an executive session. The senators on the committee, 13 Democrats and 10 Republicans, will also be given a deadline for submitting any amendments. And there will be a torrent of them on both sides.

Mr. Baucus, however, like a baseball manager with a bench full of pinch-hitters, has the advantage.

When the deadline for amendments arrives, Mr. Baucus will have a clearer picture of where lawmakers stand, particularly his fellow Democrats, some of whom, like Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, say he has already made too many concessions to Republicans.

And until the start of the committee’s formal mark-up proceedings, Mr. Baucus can incorporate amendments into his bill, or negotiate with Mr. Grassley and other Republicans with an eye toward compromises that might make certain other amendments moot.

So a fuller test of whether Mr. Baucus has succeeded in securing a bipartisan deal will come as he and Mr. Grassley negotiate changes to the bill over the next week or so. Mr. Grassley, in his statement, promised to keep trying.

“We’ve been clear from the start that we’re willing to stay at the table,” Mr. Grassley said. “There’s no reason not to keep working until we get it right. In the end, legislation that impacts every American should have strong bipartisan support.”

Why should Democrats continue to capitulate to a Republican Party with no apparent interest in meaningful health care reform? Why should my desire as a self-employed person working on contracts and commission to buy into a public option be in the hands of people like Chuck Grassley when Democrats control Congress? Indeed, why vote for Democrats at all if they mirror Republican Party members with no ideas and for whom I have never cast a single vote?

I'm not writing Democrats off--yet. But they'd better give me some of that change I've heard so much about on this one, or all bets are off.

Get Smart.

From Roll Call:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday ordered Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to drop a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes on a massive health care reform bill.

Reid, whose leadership is considered crucial if President Barack Obama is to deliver on his promise of enacting health care reform this year, offered the directive to Baucus through an intermediary after consulting with Senate Democratic leaders during Tuesday morning’s regularly scheduled leadership meeting. Baucus was meeting with Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Tuesday afternoon to relay the information.

According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn’t worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans.

Welcome to The Show, Harry. You need to be the "Chief" because Baucus is clearly "Max." And the GOP is nothing but KAOS.

UPDATE: Once again, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders takes the lead. Read about it here.

Attention, Democrats: Meeting Halfway Is Futile When The Other Side Hasn't Left Yet.

As previously hinted at on JackRabbit Café, it looks like all that insurance company and HMO money really does have Democratic Senator Max Baucus bought and paid for:

From Sam Stein on HuffPo:

Senator Max Baucus, one of the key players in crafting health care reform, broke some big news on Thursday, when he announced that the Senate Finance Committee he chairs could get a bill done for under $1 trillion.

"We are much closer on the scores for a health care reform package than were at this point last week," he said, according to remarks passed along by his staff. "We have options the Congressional Budget Office tells us would cost under $1 trillion and be fully paid for. Based on these developments, I'm even more confident in our ability to move forward. And as I've said before, we will not put out a mark until we are sure we have it right. I'll continue to work with Senator [Chuck] Grassley and members on both sides of aisle to turn these options into a package that can pass the Senate and become law this year."

The details of the Montana Democrat's cuts and proposals have yet to be fully fleshed out, though they likely involve drops in the percentage to which the bill would expand coverage and additional tax increases. An aide on the Finance Committee said that members would be working through the details during the afternoon.

Either way, in the context of congressional politics the pronouncement of a trillion dollar bill is big news. The Finance Committee's initial proposal had come in at a cost of $1.6 trillion, a number that was met with heavy criticism from Republicans in the senate. Even the Obama White House had to backtrack from the prospective bill, saying it was stage one in an ongoing legislative process.

Baucus's GOP counterpart Chuck Grassley was already paying dividends to his donors.

Urgent Care.

From the AP, via HuffPo:

Fixing the economy requires overhauling the U.S. health care system, a White House report concludes--just the message the administration needs to help implement a sweeping new social welfare program during a recession.

The report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers says that health care costs--now about 18 percent of the gross domestic product--will rise to 34 percent in 30 years if left unchecked, wreaking havoc on the federal deficit, businesses and working Americans.

Obama administration officials, urgently seeking to build momentum for health care legislation, planned to discuss the report's findings at the White House on Tuesday with leaders of the key Senate committees drafting bills.

"Health care reform is incredibly important not just for the American people but for the American economy," said Christina Romer, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers. "Good health care reform is essentially good economic policy."

Critics were quick to dismiss the report.

"Everyone agrees that reducing the cost of health care would benefit our economy, but the administration hasn't offered a credible plan to do so without raising taxes or rationing care," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

(Editor's note: Boehner's crack about "rationing care" is one of the many lies opponents of health care reform routinely trot out in an attempt to blow smoke up your ass. See McCaughey, Betsy.)

President Barack Obama and his advisers have consistently sought to link health care and the economy but they're turning up the volume as Congress returns from a weeklong recess and turns its attention to health care.

Later Tuesday, Obama was set to meet at the White House with Senate Democratic leaders to "discuss the urgent need to get rising health care costs under control," according to a White House advisory.

On Monday, a coalition of industry groups submitted proposals to the White House they said would reduce the growth of their own costs by 1.5 percent a year, consistent with Obama's goals.

Obama wants legislation that would hold down costs, guarantee choice and extend coverage to the 50 million Americans who don't have it now.

Two Senate committees are crafting legislation: the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

The Democrats on Kennedy's committee were meeting Tuesday for a first look at an outline of Kennedy's plans. It wasn't clear if Kennedy, who has been diagnosed with brain cancer, would be present.

Neither committee has released a full bill yet. Both have circulated proposals and differences have emerged, leading Kennedy and Baucus to issue a joint statement over the weekend promising to work together.

Majority Democrats in the House and the Senate want to bring the legislation to the floor by August.