He's betrayed the president, he's betrayed us, but he's remained faithful to his masters -- the insurance companies. Which, when all's said and done, is all that counts, from his perspective. So don't say he's got nothing'; he's got what he's wanted from the beginning. The 'bipartisanship" was but a cover for his real agenda.

What I want to know: what are democrats going to do about Baucus? He messed up big time here, he has a completely unworkable bill, democrats can not run on the bill he's presented. God willing, it'll get better going through markup. But it's awful as is and Harry Reid has to make several big choices here putting this bill together with the HELP bill. I think, given the clear lack of R votes, it's time to plan out the reconciliation tactics to get health care done.

But we shouldn't forget what Baucus and Conrad have done to screw the Democrats and the President.

MY and GS are right -- Baucus did his very best to help the GOP kill health care reform.

Bastard.

I was about to post something along the lines of Rhoda. Shouldn't the Democratic Caucus be meeting right now to strip Baucus of his Committee Chair?

At the worst you make changes and concessions in exchange for support. You do not produce a watered down and neutered bill with the hope to gain votes somewhere down the line...if ever.

"Indeed, the level of support (or lack thereof) puts into doubt the utility of Baucus' entire strategy. "

I believe you've confused the words utility and futility.

What should the Democrats do? Well the Committee on Health, Education, and Labor (note the word "health" in the name) should draft a different bill. For starters.

He slowed the process down causing unnecessary delay and a rise in partisan bickering he did a good job for the health insurance industry but a poor job for the citizens of the USA he has been well paid by his handlers which does not seem to be the people of MT he has become a mountebank, a seller of quack medical fixes howsoever if one could replace coops with one nationwide cooperative with a people's elected Board of Directore elected at large by all members or citizens we may have something worth amending

Hey, and due to his bill, the recession is over. At least for the health Insurance bloodsucking leeches:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/16/stocks-baucus/

He's not sleeping with the health insurance industry. They are just friends. Really! They are.

I blame Reid for being such a weak leader.

Faithful to his masters...

Thoreau:

“The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue.”

Sunlight foundation:

The overall health and insurance sectors haven’t just been kind to Baucus’ staffers, but they’ve also aided his campaigns handsomely over the years, especially in his barely contested 2008 reelection campaign. In 2008, Baucus received $1,148,775 from the health sector and $285,850 from the insurance sector. For his career he has received $2,797,381 from the health sector and $1,170,313 from the insurance sector.

That, in the end, could end up being the Gang of Six's true legacy.

Only if the party in control let's it.
Time to toss his BS bill in the trash and move along.

He is acting so proud and he should be, he just did what he gets paid to do, help keep the health care industries very profitable.

Greg Sargent: "...That, in the end, could end up being the Gang of Six's true legacy."

No. Max Baucus' legacy. His and his alone.

I have to say I'm not surprised. As much as I despised the actions of the Republicans when they were in power, they managed to do an amazing number of things they wanted to do with a much smaller margin for error. The democrats have substantial majorities (by political standards) and can't seem to garner the necessary support to pass an issue.

Bipartisanship is nice in an ideal world, but the actions of the republican opposition are far from ideal. Newsflash to the democrats, you won, now lead. If the public doesn't like what you do they'll let you know at the ballot box.

Sen. Max Baucus' health care reform bill is, to say the least, disappointing. But then, we can probably say that confidently about 80-90% of the Gentleman from Montana's work product. If you think this is bad, just wait until he gets his hands on the cap-and-trade bill.

By continually allowing peerage and privilege to trump competence and public need, the U.S. Senate appears hellbent on turning itself into a near-useless historical anachronism, not unlike the British Parliament's House of Lords.

Its members would do well to consider what happened to the upper chamber's power in Britain, when its privileged members likewise proved tone deaf to the public welfare and stood foursquare in the way of necessary reforms, thus provoking a public reaction that subsequently compelled Their Lordships' subordination in rank to the House of Commons through the Parliament Acts of 1911, 1949 and 1999.

Think Progress: Health Insurance Stocks Rally With Release Of Baucus Health Bill

That pretty much says it all.

Ignore the finance committee bill. Pretend it doesn't exist and pass the HELP committee's bill under reconcilliation. Please!

I say scrap health care insurance entirely.

If you get sick, go to your nearby over-crowded and under-staffed emergency room or "convenient-care" facility.

Why should only the un-insured reap the benefits of such care?

We obviously aren't going to get a decent bill, so scrap insurance.

The health benefits of jobs or lack thereof are driving our economy into the dustbin of history.

All liability lawsuits would have to disappear as well, since it's malpractice insanity that has sent the cost of healthcare to the moon (and back, since we can't afford to land there anymore due to the high cost of , well you get my drift)

But they know who won on American Idol

Came you imagine the national rage if even 50% of Americans knew:

1) Who Max Baucus is...
2) What his assigned job is...
3) The fact that he has taken 3 million dollars from health care industry lobbyists...

I can't recall an instance where the ignorance of Americans has been so starkly exposed.

Baucus did what the insurance companies paid him 3 million dollars to do: slow walk health care reform until manufactured conservative "outrage" could kill it. The ONLY way to proceed is for Democrats alone to pass a strong progressive bill and weather the resulting storm -- 'cause the storm's gonna happen no matter what bill is passed.

Friends~
Baucus was really looking to give the Conserva-Dems in the Senate more cover for their WEAK positions on REAL reform.
Real reform can only fail when Baucus, Bayh, Nelson, Lieberman, Conrad etc. get away with serving their Corporate Payors rather than the American people.
T. R. Reid in the latest, Newsweek points out,
"All other industrialized Democracies guarantee
Health care for everybody-young or old, rich or poor. The US. is the only developed nation where medical bankruptcies occur."
We deserve FAIR insurance rates. Rates that REAL competition create.
We deserve the right to the Public option.

The republicans have Bachmann, we have Baucus.

max baucus should spend eternity emptying bed pans...

he embodies the truly cold-hearted and soul-less dimension of cruelty in this nation when it comes to broaching the subject of the human right to health care in a decent society.

he feasts on the blood of innocents as surely as any war criminal or other monster -- and i sincerely hope he does not fool himself into doubting that.

Baucus deliberately came up with a crappy bill that is so completely unaffordable for most Americans to give his conserva-buddies ammunition against reforming the health care system.

Reid is just as culpable.

"Well the Committee on Health, Education, and Labor (note the word "health" in the name) should draft a different bill."

Hmm. They did, it came out in the first week of July. It didn't deal with the Medicare piece but did address the PO. the Exchange, the rating rules and all the important pieces of reform. Reid just needs to graft some version of the Finance Medicare provisions onto it and use it as the base for the bill sent to the Floor.

Links to the HELP Bill and its CBO scoring here:
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/07/kennedy-dodd-help-bill-with-cbo-scoring.html

Baucus not only isn't being rewarded for his attempts at bipartisan outreach, his efforts have led to a landscape that's fundamentally worse for reform.
===========================

In his terms, I believe that's called "a success."

Wouldn't it be cool if the Democrats would impersonate Democrats instead of Republicans for a change?

Speaking of scoring CBO released a score based on Finance Staff supplied numbers (there not being many hard numbers in the Chairman's Mark itself). I extracted some Tables and put them up with some links a couple of minutes ago here:
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/09/cbo-preliminary-score-of-baucuss.html

Baucus's bill leaves 25 million Americans uninsured. Which to be fair is less than where the HELP bill scored but way shittier than where CBO put HR3200.

And Steve I am not at all sure I agree that we are necessarily in a worse position for reform. To put it bluntly Obama had even more buy-in for Baucus's line of crap a month ago then he does now. Back then Rockefeller was totally marginalized, today he is more or less in the driver's seat. The New Republic reported that Rockefeller said the Baucus plan was DOA on a conference call yesterday and now he has the numbers to back that up.

Baucus's calculation was simple: use the Logic of 60 to pick up the 8 more or less centrist Dems on Finance, add himself and three Republicans and he would have a majority of 12 on the 23 member Finance Committee supporting a 'bi-partisan' bill. In doing so he could simply lose the votes of seven arch-conservative R's and four liberal D's in Rockefeller, Kerry, Schumer, and Wyden.

That needle's got narrower when Hatch dropped out of talks on July 23rd leaving Baucus scrambling to keep all three remaining Gang of Six R's on board. Ultimately he failed in that.

If Baucus can hold Snowe's vote he needs ten out of the remaining 12 Dems to with his vote get him to his magic number. Without Snowe he needs 11 of 12. Right now he seems to have lost Snowe on the one side and Rockefeller on the other meaning that passing his version out of Finance means not losing any of the remaining 3 unabashed liberals plus some liberal leaners like Menendez, Stabenow and Cantwell.

I suppose there is some fantasy scenario where some R's vote his way just to keep a better bill from emerging from Finance, but I don't see any of them wanting to throw Baucus a lifeline here, after all any Mountain State Democrat has to be on their electoral targeting list.

The reign of King Baucus may be coming to an end here.

This is a pivotal moment for both Democrats and our nation.

Will Dems stand up to this pathetic excuse for "reform" and what it is right and what a majority of American people have repeatedly said they want? Or will they cave (again) on a vital issue?

Will Dems use the process the GOP has repeatedly used to pass real reform? Or will they cave because some conservatives whine about it?

Will they ever realize that the GOP is NOT interested in helping solve our health care crisis? Or will they continue trying to get "bipartisan" support, despite the fact nothing the do will accomplish that?

It's up to Democrats to get this thing done, and get it done right. If they do, they might just keep on to their majorities. If they don't, they're guaranteed to lose them

And that's what they just don't get -- the political risk of NOT doing something is worse than if they do. Yet they don't seem to understand that fact.

If they can't get a halfway decent bill, they don't deserve to be in power, and America deserves to go down in flames.

It really is that simple.

I only got through the first comment when I saw this: "He's betrayed the president, he's betrayed us, but he's remained faithful to his masters"

COME ON. It's been shown over and over and over and over and OVER that Baucus is working directly with the president, with insurers, and with Big Pharma. Why don't some on the left understand this? It's in the NYTimes, on FireDogLake daily, it's documented a million places! PLEASE people stop blaming the usual villains (centrist Dems), and place blame where it belongs -- on the White House/Baucus team.

So, knowing that, here are the explanations for the bill's delay (which are not mutually exclusive):

a) Obama wanted bi-partisan support
b) Obama wanted political cover given by attempting bi-partisan support
c) Obama wanted a chance to water down the bill to garner moderate Senators' and industry support
d) Obama wanted to shift focus away from the House, the HELP committee, etc
e) Obama wanted to cut some deals with key industry people

If we imagine "bad faith Obama," controlled by Rahm and negotiating through Messina/etc, it doesn't make sense that he'd want to endure the eventual low approval ratings brought on by the Baucus/Obama stalling.

If we imagine "good faith Obama," controlled by his fears of being a '93 Clinton and willing to get any health reform done (with industry input), it doesn't make sense he'd be so ineffective at getting the moderate bill through committee so he could fix it up in conference committee.

It's clear: Obama either mis-judged the GOP opposition for the sake of crapping on a good bill, or he is extremely ineffective at using his army of legislative contacts to get a bill through and hurry the process along. Either one makes no sense.

I've finally come to the conclusion we can only judge outcomes, not read minds. The outcome here is a moderate bill that no one supports. That, to me, is a massive failure.

Yes, wasn’t that the plan to begin with…it was to distribute all the wealth of the rich..and you know, Hollywood people have all their lawyers so they don’t get hitched (pay high taxes) so who is left, we, the middle class…so then we barely make it…Well, we can think who??? You guess!!! Tax increase by our lovely government. Thanks a lot.

Greatings, www.washingtonmonthly.com - da best. Keep it going!
Thanks
Robor