Ezra Klein: The Max Baucus Committee

[flpoljunkie]

The Max Baucus Committee



There's been a lot of anxiety over leaks outlining the compromises being made in the Senate Finance Committee's health-care plan. Among these compromises is a rejection of the public option and the absence of an employer mandate. Disappointing stuff. But, at this point, completely predictable.

Look at this picture. Study it. This is who is in the room helping Baucus put together his bill. Olympia Snowe, Mike Enzi, Chuck Grassley, Jeff Bingaman and Kent Conrad. In a Senate of 60 Democrats and 40 Republicans, the health-care reform bill is being written by three centrist Democrats, one centrist Republicans, and two conservative Republicans. And until last week, Orrin Hatch was in the room, too.

This is not the Finance Committee's bill. This is the Max Baucus Committee's Bill. And there's not a liberal -- or even a Democrat traditionally associated with health-care policy -- working on it. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of Finance's health subcommittee, is not included in the negotiations. Nor is Ron Wyden, who has written the Healthy Americans Act. Chuck Schumer isn't in the room, nor is John Kerry, Debbie Stabenow or Maria Cantwell.

more...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/07/the_max_baucus_committee.html

More on Max Baucus's Gang of Six

From Matt Yglesias:

It does strike me as worth noting that when you read a puff piece in The New York Times about the Gang of Six bipartisan dealmakers in the Senate that vast power is being wielded by people who, in a democratic system of government, would have almost no power. We’re talking, after all, about Max Baucus of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Collectively those six states contain about 2.74 percent of the population, less than New Jersey, or about one fifth the population of California. The six largest states, by contrast, contain about 40 percent of Americans.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/07/more_on_max_baucuss_gang_of_si.html

[valerief]

1. How did they get selected for the Finance Committee? nt

[karynnj]

5. Committee assignments are chosen first when Senators

first become Senators. They are asked their choices in committees and their is a complex system that determines who gets what. The Finance committee also fills a lot of its slots taking people who are seen to be good on related committees.

Here, those pictured were selected by Baucus. I have no idea how he was able to exclude most of the committee - including the chair of its health sub-committee, Rockefeller.

[valerief]

7. Thanks. nt

[SpartanDem]

2. Erza is right this bill is all about Max and his gang of jackasses

it's certainly not about rest of the committe or the larger Senate(thank God).

The question is whether Baucus's final product will matter. Rockefeller and the other Democrats on the committee have felt excluded from the negotiations and will want major changes before they can sign onto the final product. Then the Finance bill will have to be reconciled with the more liberal legislation built by the HELP Committee. Then it will have to go to the floor, where it will need the support of people like Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown just as much as it will need Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh. And then, if it passes those tests, it will have to be reconciled with the House's legislation.

All of which is to say that the Baucus process is attracting an immense amount of interest, but the product may not look a lot like the bill that Congress eventually considers. And the reason is simple enough: Baucus's process doesn't look a lot like Congress. Baucus, Enzi, Snow, Grassley, Bingaman, and Conrad all think of themselves as dealmakers, but right now, they're not cutting a deal on behalf of anyone but themselves.

[bvar22]

3. Missing from this photo:

the suitcases full of bribe money paid to Baucus and his henchmen.

[Mass]

4. I find the ones not there as guilty as the ones who are there..

They should have protested loudly. They decided to let Baucus do whatever he wanted.

They have felt excluded, but have not said a word about it publicly. If anything, some like Kerry or Wyden, have been publicly nice to the Committee, not mentioning their disagreements.

I hope Ezra Klein is right on what will happen, but still. It is very disappointing to see people who keep silent when things like that happen.

[karynnj]

6. Rockefeller did protest - he was the chair of the Health sub-committee

I assume the reason that people like Kerry were nice was that there was nothing that was going to change that bill and he will need them soon on the energy bill. The facts were there were 6 proponents of the public option out of 23. The hope is voting it out and getting reconciliation.

[valerief]

8. In any other country, they'd be fearing for their lives. You'd think with all the guns here...

[Mass]

9. It is asking too much of me to believe they will start to become vocal supporters of this

public option after it goes to conference (where they probably will not be anyway), if they have not started yet.

In order to reach reconciliation (the one with a big R), you need to have the public option in the bill. It is more and more clear it will not. But we can cling on unrealistic scenarios.

As for Kerry, I hope this was not his calculation, because it is probably a lost one. In order to get a bill that makes sense and is useful, Boxer and him will probably need to twist some arms. The bill from the House is barely worth it and it will need to be diluted to go through the Senate.

I am with Dean: what's the point of having 60 senators if you cannot pass a decent healthcare bill.