UPDATE | 9:42 a.m. Senator Baucus’s office has just released a copy of his bipartisan proposal. Read it here (pdf).
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.
Democratic 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.”
Mr. Baucus has the highest hopes of winning support from Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, who has been courted aggressively by the White House and is a key negotiator within the group of six.
The third Republican in the group of six, Senator Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, is unlikely to support a deal that does not have Mr. Grassley’s backing.
And Mr. Grassley’s support will probably hinge on a few lightning-rod issues, including abortion and immigrants, as well as his reluctance to support a requirement that all Americans obtain health insurance beginning in 2013
“There are still some serious outstanding issues that have yet to be resolved,” Mr. Grassley said in his statement. “Like preventing taxpayer funding of abortion services and the enforcement against subsidies for illegal aliens. I have also pressed for alternatives to the individual mandate and ways to lower the overall cost of the bill, as well as tougher medical liability reform measures.”
Mr. Grassley and other Republicans do not want states to have to shoulder much if any of the cost of an expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poorest Americans. Mr. Baucus is calling on states to share some of the cost.
Mr. Grassley also wants assurances that no tax dollars, including new government subsidies to help moderate-income Americans afford health insurance, will be used to pay for abortions. Some Democrats want the health care legislation to stay silent on the issue.
And Mr. Grassley is pushing for a five-year waiting period before legal immigrants can obtain the subsidies, which will be distributed in the form of tax credits. This is on top of an agreement by Democrats to bar illegal immigrants from purchasing insurance through a new government-regulated marketplace, even if they are willing and able to pay full price.
But Mr. Grassley’s chief concern, and one that other Republicans have expressed as well, is that they say they have no assurance from President Obama or Democratic Congressional leaders that any agreements hammered out in the Senate would necessarily be included in the final legislation.
“There’s no guarantee that a Finance Committee bill, even if it becomes bipartisan, will stay that way after it leaves the committee,” Mr. Grassley said. “An overriding issue for some time has been the fact that members of the Democratic leadership haven’t made a commitment to back a broad bipartisan bill through the entire process.”
Republicans, for example, fiercely oppose the idea of a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers, a so-called “public option” that is favored by President Obama and many House Democrats.
As an alternative, Mr. Baucus and the other negotiators in the bipartisan six agreed to call for the creation of private, nonprofit health insurance cooperatives, which would similarly compete with private insurers.
But Mr. Grassley and other Republicans fear that even if the Senate bill does not include a public option, it will be inserted into the House version of the health care legislation and ultimately adopted during conference proceedings.
Aides to Mr. Grassley suggested that the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, could offer a public guarantee to help seal a deal but so far has refused to do so. If Mr. Grassley does not ultimately get on board, Ms. Snowe will face a difficult choice.
She has said previously that a single Republican vote does not necessarily mean a bill is partisan. And yet she has shown a willingness to break with her party if it is in the interest of her home state, as she did on the economic stimulus bill earlier this year.
Throughout the health care negotiations, Ms. Snowe has sounded more upbeat about reaching an agreement.
But other Republicans on the Finance Committee have been readying their opposition to the Baucus plan in strategy meetings.
A senior Republican aide said that Mr. Enzi, Mr. Grassley and Ms. Snowe had not participated in the side sessions, so that they would have leeway to continue negotiating in good faith with Mr. Baucus.
Instead, the talks have been coordinated by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, who is a senior member of the Republican leadership, and Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, a veteran of major legislative battles over health care but who months ago said he had no hope of a bipartisan deal.
Most Republicans have been deeply unhappy with the Democratic health care proposals so far, and Republicans on the Finance Committee were said to be bracing for two possibilities: a partisan proposal that they were going to oppose, or a bipartisan proposal that they were going to oppose.
The Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said he would be surprised if any Republicans ended up backing the proposal by Mr. Baucus.
“I don’t that that’s a package that very many Republicans are going to support,” he said at a news conference Tuesday at which he repeated his assertion that the Democrats were proposing untenable cuts to Medicare. “But Senator Grassley and Senator Enzi can speak for themselves.”
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