The Senate Finance Committee will soon begin debating a health care bill that will likely be unveiled this week, and already, a tug of war is emerging between committee Democrats who want to bolster a number of measures and Republican negotiators who want to see the bill get smaller.
Democrats are largely concerned that the plan won’t offer uninsured Americans the sufficiently generous subsidies they’ll need in order to afford the health insurance they’ll be required to buy.
Addressing that issue, though, seems mutually exclusive from meeting the goals of ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), both of whom want the price of the bill to be significantly lower than it is, and also object to a plan to pay for it by imposing fees on insurance companies.
How solicitous Finance chairman Max Baucus is of those Republicans may depend on Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), who is the only other Republican on the committee involved in negotiations over the bill, and may be uncomfortable voting for a bill without any other Republicans.
However, any snags will have to be resolved promptly. Leadership is pressing for a swift vote, even if that ultimately means passing a Democrat-only bill out of Finance, and resuming negotiations with Snowe later in the process.
Baucus, meanwhile, thinks the bill will emerge from committee looking quite a bit like the summary he circulated last week.
“I don’t see any deal-breaker amendments,” Baucus told The Hill. “Put it this way: It’s unlikely that any amendments, which basically change the framework, will be accepted.”
