Today the Senate finance committee approved the so-called "Baucus bill" supported by Baucus the Montana senator (pictured above along with Obama and Pelosi). The bill does not contain a "public option." Other competing bills in the Senate and House do contain the public option. The unions are already lining up against the Baucus bill. So are the radical "progressives," likely including Pelosi based on recent statements she's made. The linked story below says the "war" now begins within the democratic party to see how far leftward the Baucus bill will be taken as the dems in the Senate attempt to merge it with a competing Senate bill (containing the public option), not to mention the House versions of the bill containing the public option. It should be interesting to observe this process from the sidelines. So what's my view on the Baucus bill? I have no idea, since it's 1300 pages long and not much of anyone has read it yet. I can guarantee you that repubs will oppose it about 99%. But to me, the presence of a public option in many of these bills has always been my biggest concern and source of opposition, because I'm convinced that just about any public option is designed to and will result ultimately result in a single payer system, i.e. total government control of American health insurance (which I very much oppose). Put another way, I may well be able to support the Baucus bill once I know more about it, but I highly suspect that the bill ultimately voted upon by the Senate and House is likely to bear little resemblace to the current Baucus bill. The big issue is whether or not the bill voted upon will contain a public option of some type. I think it likely will, but with some kind of "trigger" or other qualification that gives Obama his endgame: Which is that something passes on which he can claim victory and which is ultimately satisfactory to the far left (even if they'd like to see something stronger than what ultimately passes). Stay tuned...http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28256.html
Posts
