Waffling Baucus Made Firm Commitment To Obama: Rangel

[Wetzelbill]

Waffling Baucus Made Firm Commitment To Obama: Rangel

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) committed to finish health care reform by the August recess in a meeting with President Obama Monday, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) told the Huffington Post.

Obama made it abundantly clear to congressional leaders that the August deadline was crucial to the reform-effort's success. The question of just what Baucus, a key leader of the health care reform effort in the Senate, committed to in the private meeting has been an open one on Capitol Hill. Staffers familiar with the pow-wow insist that the participants agreed to move a bill through the chamber before the August recess, yet Baucus has been his typically cautious self in comments to reporters.

Baucus played it cool Tuesday, saying that the committee would move a bill only when it has an agreement and sounding much like the same Baucus that has repeatedly refused to commit to a pre-August-recess deadline. Instead, he emphasized that it would be finished by the end of the year.

"The goal is to get an agreement and we'll try our very best to get one," Baucus said. "We're going to pass very significant and meaningful health care reform this year. I'm very optimistic and excited this is going to happen. I've always felt we were going to pass health care reform this year. I feel just as strongly now as I always have and this just takes time because it's so complicated. There's just so much involved here."

But that's not what he told Obama, Rangel said. Rangel, who also attended the meeting with Obama, was asked if Baucus had committed during the meeting with the president to get health care reform passed by the August recess. "Yes," Rangel said firmly.

Rangel is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee; Baucus chairs the Senate Finance Committee.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/14/waffling-baucus-made-firm_n_232338.html

[Kdillard]

1. Yeah that is good but it is what comes out of that commitment has me worried.

The House version of the bill that was released but I haven't read it yet however some of the comments have me concerned about it. The Senate never makes me happy.

[Cleita]

2. Now Rangel has to make a commitment to his base and remember who has supported him.. This House

bill only bails the House out, doesn't really deliver accessible health care to all and frankly sucks. I have read half of it and scanned the rest. I will probably read it a few times more after I bang my head on a rock a few times!

[MarjorieG]

3. We just need it out of committee, then the good members of Finance, and others, will make it happen.

[backscatter712]

4. There's now some strong performance pressure on Democrats to deliver health care reform.

This is a damned good thing. Baucus is a sleazy bastard, but being self-serving, he's predictable and manipulatable, sort of like Arlen Specter.

Because a tide is turning.

Up until this week, the big source of pressure on our congresscritters was from the lobbyists, with some opposite pressure from the President, from the more progressive members of Congress, and from us activists.

But things are changing. Now that the House bill has been unveiled, and the Senate HELP committee bill is out, both with public options, Obama's starting to pull an LBJ and twist some arms, and health care reform is heating up, people are building strong expectations that the Democrats in Congress will deliver, and there's even talk that the Democratic Party will lose support, lose seats, and maybe even lose control of Congress if they fuck this up. People are remembering 1994, and damned well don't want a repeat.

More Congresscritters are understanding what way the wind's blowing, and that very well might mean that they're gonna throw the insurance and pharmco lobbyists under the bus. If Ben Nelson voted against cloture, and because of that one vote, the entire effort failed and caused the entire party to fall on its face, he won't just have to worry about his own voters - fellow Democrats in the Senate will throw him under the bus and retaliate against him, probably with primary challenges, 527 attack ads, refusals of endorsements, campaign money or any help at all. When congressional seats and control of Congress is on the line, people like Nelson and Baucus will get heavily arm-twisted to toe the party line.

[Cleita]

5. "More Congresscritters are understanding

what way the wind's blowing, and that very well might mean that they're gonna throw the insurance and pharmco lobbyists under the bus."

That would be a miracle.