Political Commentary: Joan McCarter

Is Baucus Going to Let Chuck Grassley Kill Health Care Reform?

By Joan McCarter, 6-28-09

This week, Senator Max Baucus told the New York Times that the Senate Democrats gave too much away in going into the health care reform process.

He conceded that it was a mistake to rule out a fully government-run health system, or a “single-payer plan,” not because he supports it but because doing so alienated a large, vocal constituency and left Mr. Obama’s proposal of a public health plan to compete with private insurers as the most liberal position.

That’s encouraging, but will he take a lesson from that experience and apply it going forward? The problem for Senator Baucus now is that that public plan--critical to the President’s reform plan and the one thing that could really ensure that private insurance companies have to actually play fair and participate in real, substantial reform--is the one thing that Republicans refuse to budge on. And Baucus keeps insisting that he has to have his colleague, Republican Chuck Grassley, on board.

And it’s not just on the public plan. Baucus seems to be ignoring the obvious fact that Grassley is undercutting just about everything Baucus proclaims to intend to do with a reform package.

That was the case from the very beginning of the session, and has continued unabated. Consider this from June 12th, when Grassley made crystal clear his objection to any real reform:

Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, says he won’t back legislation to overhaul the U.S. health-care system unless Democrat Baucus, the panel’s chairman, abandons some of his party’s key goals. Among them: a government-run insurance plan and a mandate that employers cover workers.

“The biggest challenge he has in his own caucus is that a large share of Senate Democrats really want the government to run everything,” said Grassley, 75, an Iowa farmer and former chairman of the panel, which is taking the lead on the bill....

But Baucus is seemingly remains undaunted in his pipe-dream of biparisan reform.

Baucus, 67, the scion of a Montana ranching family who has split with his party before, says he’s willing to compromise, even though many Democrats may not be. The party has a 59-40 advantage in the Senate....

“It’s very important to get bipartisan consensus on something as big and large as health-care reform,” he said in an interview. “We want something sustainable.” ...

Baucus said there are ways to structure a new public program that might appeal to more Republicans. “There’s a lot we can trade off,” he said.

But if you listen to Grassley carefully, as recently as Wednesday, there isn’t anything you can trade off to get his support:

On MSNBC this morning, Norah O’Donnell asked Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, “what needs to be in” a health care reform bill “for it to be bipartisan.” After saying it needs to be paid for, Grassley declared, “We need to make sure that there’s no public option.” When O’Donnell double-checked that Grassley was saying that a public option was a dealbreaker for Republicans, he replied, “Absolutely.”

This “bipartisanship” extends goes beyond just Baucus, to Senate Democrats and the White House, and it is one of the problems with having Max Baucus be the spearhead in the process, because of the illness of Sen. Kennedy, who should have been the shepherd of health care reform. The NYT had a long report on Baucus and reform this week, pointing out--unwittingly--the key problem with Baucus in this effort.

All of that has left Mr. Baucus, 67, front and center, with the future of the health system largely in his hands. “If there is any chance we can do a bipartisan bill, it has to be in the Finance Committee,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader.

Mr. Baucus, in an interview, said he had been preparing for this role since he was elected to the Senate in 1978, and viewed this as his moment — and Montana’s — to make history....

Mr. Baucus takes great pride in working with Republicans, especially Mr. Grassley. Last week, as Republicans pummeled Mr. Dodd over the cost of his bill, Mr. Baucus huddled with some of those critics, including Mr. Grassley, to develop a bill that Republicans could support....

Soft-spoken but tenacious, Mr. Baucus in recent weeks successfully strong-armed several lobbying groups into muting their criticism of his legislation, part of a concerted strategy of assuring interest groups that they had his ear as long as they did not chew on it.

Some Republicans called it heavy handed. “They’re literally being intimidated,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

Even as Mr. Baucus has tamped down criticism, he has continued collecting campaign contributions from industry interests, including drug companies and insurers.

He did make some headlines with that collecting of campaign contributions, particularly last weekend in the form of a lobbyist party back home in Montana, hosting a bunch of lobbyists and political supporters for his Fly-Fishing & Golfing weekend in Big Sky at $2,500 a pop, $5,000 for a political action committee. He’s going to do it again at “Camp Baucus,” at the end of July. One activist characterized this all as “unseemly,” since he is at the center of the most critical reform debate of the session. Unseemly? Not in Max’s mind. “There’s no problem. I’ve been doing these events for more than 10 years.”

This all should raise some key questions for folks back home, where Baucus’s constituents, and lots of them, need real, substantive reform. Particularly the more than a third of Montana’s residents under age 65 who are uninsured. Who matters more to the Senator? Senate Republicans, lobbyists, or the people of Montana who need his help?

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