Before we get to commentary on the political ramifications of the Senate Finance Committee’s vote , something lighter: the New York Times’ David Herszenhorn offers a glimpse into less reported happenings during the bill markup, where committee staff is often summoned to answer questions:
“Thank you, Mr. Schwartz!” [Sen. Ensign] declared.
The exhausted but still chipper staffer looked up at the dais. “My pleasure,” he said. And the entire committee room, including senators, busted up laughing.
“Very civil,” quipped Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and the committee chairman.
The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder’s “Question of the Day” asks whether Republican Olympia Snowe’s vote means “comprehensive health care reform will pass?”
The New America Foundation’s Len Nichols is keeping (his own) hope alive: “The hope of bipartisan and comprehensive health care legislation lives on today thanks to the vote in the Finance Committee of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The bill reported out of the Finance Committee is bipartisan. Not just because it received support from members of both parties, but because you can see both Republican and Democratic values in the solution.”
Charles Murray writes on AEI’s Enterprise Blog that political compromises made the bill “so that it no longer makes any sense in terms of the way real human beings respond to incentives.”
Commentators have spent the last several weeks picking over the committee’s bill but yesterday’s vote clears to way to discuss the next challenge: merging all five bills.
Heritage’s Conn Carroll cautions: “Now all of the other bills will be merged together behind the closed doors. All the bills are fundamentally flawed and will only get worse as the leaders in the House and Senate have to commit to actual details.”
Bob Laszewski is eyeing the next challenge – Senate Majority Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “The more important effort will be Reid’s. Pelosi’s final product will be more predictable (very liberal) but Reid’s will have to be more practical. Every inch Reid moves away from the more moderate Baucus bill will cause problems. The big issue is going to be money—just whose taxes are going to get raised to the tune of $500 billion to pay for it.”
But Jeffrey Anderson of Critical Condition thinks “a lingering fact threatens to overshadow all the back-slapping and the toasts: The Congressional Budget Office projections indicate that, over the next 20 years, the Baucus bill would cost $3.6 trillion and would increase taxes on the American people by $2.3 trillion.”
Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky provides a nice comparison chart and thinks a lack of broader GOP support for a more moderate bill means Democratic leaders should craft a final bill that’s more progressive: “The GOP’s rejection of a bipartisan health care bill that actually reduces the deficit should empower Majority Leader Reid to secure a progressive bill that retains Snowe’s support. After all, Repubicans have indicated that they will not support the proposal. In a statement released today, Republican Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) asserted this is not real reform. ‘The fact is, this proposal will never come before the Senate.’”
The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn lists 10 reform items “worth fighting for.” He begins, “But if it’s hard to imagine a scenario under which health reform falls apart, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario under which health reform turns out to be something that makes reformers wince.” Cohn says lawmakers should increase subsidies, include some version of a public plan, strengthen exchanges and “stiffen” the individual mandate, among others.
Tags: baucus, finance committee, reform, snowe
