Bipartisanship Chokes on Itself During Baucus Bill Mark-Up. Dems Fight for Public Option While GOP Fights 'Washington Takeover'

BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) was perhaps speaking for both his fellow lawmakers as well as the majority of Americans when he said today in the executive session to consider the healthcare proposal of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) that "this bill, for a lot of my colleagues, is not their first choice."

Regardless of how one feels about the attempt at bipartisan healthcare reform clumsily titled "America's Healthy Future Act of 2009," it is the fastest-moving piece of healthcare reform legislation in the Senate. And now that the Baucus bill is finally in mark-up, an amendment process which began Tuesday morning and is expected to last at least through the week, you would think that the arguments over who's playing nice and who isn't would be put aside. But you'd be wrong.

(You can click here for a PDF of Baucus' original mark, but an updated version is expected to be submitted to the committee Tuesday afternoon.)

Though members did tend to submit their concerns (and each of them had plenty of those, to be sure), the theme of division and partisanship reigned, with each side accusing the other of playing politics (which, if carried out to its logical conclusion, means everyone is playing politics, does it not?).

The issue of time was a potent one. Republicans, true to their conservative nature said that everything was moving too fast. The majority of Republican committee members mentioned "artificial timetables" and "arbitrary deadlines" supposedly set by Senate leadership and the White House, saying that they still wanted more time to work on the bill.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), as the only Republican lawmaker thought to be amenable to eventually voting for the Baucus bill and member of the Gang of Six group that has failed to hammer out a bipartisan bill to this point, said she nonetheless felt the group "debated policy and not politics," and that she and her Republican colleagues "regretted that those deliberations prematurely concluded." 

Democrats roundly rejected the insinuation, calling for action.

"Only in Washington could people suggest that that’s a rush," said Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), noting that the recent months were only the latest push for healthcare reform, an effort that has spanned decades. "This is the time to vote. This is the time to legislate... This is a kind of moment that won't come again soon."

The committee's attempt at crafting a bipartisan bill still received more than its fair share of praise. Another member of the Gang of Six, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) criticized the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for drafting "a bill with no substantial input" from the minority, which as a consequence has "no chance of passing the Senate."

Though Enzi has in the past characterized his own involvement in the Gang of Six as obstructionist, he said that he will continue to offer "constructive ideas" to the bill as the mark-up proceeds.

Wyden, in turn, criticized the lack of bipartisanship in the Baucus bill. In his statement in the mark-up today, he said the current mark is "short on both real reform and Democrats and Republicans having their names on this legislation."

While each lawmaker offered ways to make the bill better (indeed, there are already some 500 amendments to the Baucus legislation), some criticism fell under the same partisan bickering that the senators criticized in the preceding sentences of their opening statements.

For example, the idea of the legislation as a "Washington takeover" was expressed by the majority of Republicans who gave opening statements today. And though conservatives did not directly reference "death panels" as they have in recent months, several members warned of "rationed care" under the bill and cuts to Medicare. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) seemed to have switched out the word "board" for panel when talking about rationing care for seniors.

Politico's report of congressional fundraising plans being based on the healthcare debate were briefly touched on as well. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) called the National Republican Senatorial Committee's admitted use of the healthcare debate as a political opportunity "shameful."

"Time and time again when I hear about death panels, which do not exist and could not exist, when I hear about the takeover of healthcare... This plan does not even call for a public option, and yet we hear about a 'government takeover," said Menendez. "I question the sincerity [of such claims]."

Getting down to the proposed changes to the legislation heard in the opening statements today, Democrats have clearly not yet abandoned a public option.

"To my less-than-progressive friends: We need transparency and accountability in the market," said Menendez, insisting that a "strong public option" would accomplish such a goal.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) agreed, saying that she is "very concerned" about the ability of a plan without the public option to lower costs overall for the average American family.

"Instead of giving them real competition with a public option, we're giving them a subsidy to buy the expensive coverage," Cantwell said. "We have much more work to do if [we want to] give them true choice and true competition."

Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) offered a different plan to lower costs, which seemed somewhat contradictory, or at least poorly thought out.

"You were spot-on with some of the problems; I differ on solutions," Ensign said to Cantwell in his opening statement. He suggested putting "the patient back... into the cost-sharing loop" and forcing people to have some "skin in the game," to incentivize them to lower their own personal healthcare costs.

Several Republican committee members suggested other cost cutting measures, such as allowing Americans to shop for insurance across state lines. But moderate Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) worried that insurance companies might move to states with looser regulations and avoid setting up shop in places where the rules would be stricter.

"If you do that for the purposes of getting larger numbers of people in a health insurance plan, that's great," Nelson told his Republican colleagues. "But if there's some subterranean subterfuge... then I have a problem with that."

The President Obama's remarks on the Sunday talk shows over the weekend about the individual mandate not really being a tax increase because the net cost of healthcare for people will go down caught the ire of a few Republicans on the committee.

"Perhaps we should change the name of the tax code to the 'shared responsibility code,'" Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) suggested sarcastically.

Though there was plenty of bickering over whether or not the proposal would increase or decrease the budget deficit over time, the one thing that both parties could agree upon is that the Baucus plan is not yet affordable enough for the average American family.

Snowe worried about the costs to federal and state governments, but also said the amount of money the plan demands from middle class families is "wrong, and it's unfair," noting that a family of four earning $67,000 a year would have to pay some 20 percent of their income on healthcare under the plan.

Nelson reiterated that it is key that the bill must cut costs, but urged that lawmakers "not take it out of the hide of the middle class or up-end their coverage."

While both parties were concerned with their constituents' costs, at least one lawmaker had a progressive solution. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), whom Chairman Baucus introduced as "Senator Affordability" because of her repeated questioning of the consumer costs of the bill, said she would be less concerned about the adequacy of the federal tax credits to people who buy their own insurance if there were a public option available.

The Finance Committee reconvenes this afternoon to consider the many amendments on the table. The public option is in there, though there's no guarantee it'll be implemented in the conservative Finance Committee's plan before it reaches the Senate floor.

BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS