Six members of the Senate Finance Committee, three Democrats and three Republicans, have been meeting for many weeks to work out details of a massive overhaul of the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system.
I suspect these Senators and not the GOP mob tactics are the deciding factor as to where the healthcare reform bill will go.
... endgame for healthcare reform still turns on six bipartisan negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee — and the army of interest groups invited in or out of the cone of silence.
Their clout is the number 60. That’s the number of votes it takes to break a filibuster in the Senate, and with members absent for health reasons, Democrats need GOP votes to get to 60. The only panel with a claim to a bipartisan strategy is Senate Finance.
The six include Sens. Max Baucus (D) of Montana (committee chairman), Kent Conrad (D) of North Dakota, and Jeff Bingaman (D) of New Mexico, who rank No. 3 and 4 in seniority on the Democratic side. The three Republicans are Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa (the ranking member), Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Michael Enzi of Wyoming.
Emerging elements of the Senate Finance draft include: No public health insurance plan, no employer mandate and no denial of coverage for preexisting conditions; a likely individual mandate and subsidies to help buy insurance; a network of nonprofit, member-owned cooperatives and state-based health insurance exchanges to expand access; taxes on high-end insurance policies; and a price tag of around $900 billion over 10 years.
Senate’s ‘Gang of Six’ key to healthcare reform
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