Baucus: Public Option Not Likely to Survive

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)
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No big surprise here, but at this stage of the game it’s worth keeping tabs on what all the key players are saying. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus says a public option probably isn’t gonna make it.

“I’m not sure if public option is going to survive, frankly,” Baucus told a crowd in Missoula today, saying a co-op system is much more likely.

Baucus has been fairly mum on his own preferences since handing over the fate of health care reform to the now-defunct Gang of Six. Though he once endorsed a public option, his committee walked away from the measure long ago, and a Finance Committee staffer told me last month that the proposal that eventually emerges from the Finance Committee will represent what Baucus believes can survive the Senate.

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