Health Care Reform and Senator Max Baucus

April 28, 2009 in Healthcare, Max Baucus

by jhwygirl

I’ve yet to write about Ezra Klein’s visit to Missoula last week to speak on health care (or my meeting with Wulfgar! – I don’t know which was a bigger event!), but one thing that Ezra spoke of was our senator’s important – very important – roll in instituting some sort of health care policy.

Max is the man, because, when it comes down to it, it’s about the money. It’s always about the money. And with Sen. Baucus as Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, nothing will get done without going through his committee.

Before heading home, Ezra Klein sat down with Montana journalist Mike Dennison for an interview. While that interview was posted in several places, the Billings Gazette gets the link because it had the most comments.

I’ll note that blogs aren’t unique in having commentators that resort to personal attacks – in this case, the usual: Forward Montana – and anything but the subject at hand.

Congressional Quarterly Politics has a nice interview with our Senator Baucus on the subject of health care. Baucus is clearly wrestling with the idea of having a government-run health care insurer – whether it is necessary and what, if any, role one would play.

Wednesday begins the formal policy discussions in the Senate on health care reform and national health care.

While a government-run insurance plan was still on the table, Baucus said “it might be a bit on the side of the table.” Instead, he said, he would focus on preserving the insurance system for self-insured companies while expanding private insurance and public programs such as Medicaid, the insurance program for the poor. “We’ll end up with more private insurance and more public insurance,” he said.

He later backed off that statement slightly, saying he might return to the government-run idea later on. Baucus has previously backed the idea of a government-run plan to compete with private insurers and drive down costs, but the political difficulty of the idea has put pressure on him to drop it. Many Republicans vehemently oppose any idea of a government-run insurance plan, while many of the left are demanding its inclusion.

The CQ piece mentions Baucus’ “white paper”. People should really go read it before going off and ranting about “socialism”.

It’s fair to note that while there were many skeptics when it comes to Baucus and health care reform, virtually all health care policy analysts on the progressive side have agreed that Baucus is serious about health care reform and that he is clearly seizing his lead in guiding the process.

On Tuesday, Baucus released this report to the Senate Finance Committee as a precursor the the initial discussions, which begin Wednesday, April 29th.

Health care is the largest policy initiative that has been so very very long in coming, in all honesty there’s a part of me that can’t comprehend that there is actually going to be serious discussion working towards solutions. It’s not something that I’ll be reading about like fiction or hypothetical – it’ll all be something that is going to end up being something real.

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