So Senate Comm To Vote Out Bill Without Public Option.... LINK

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/27/senate-group-dropping-dem_n_245839.html

"WASHINGTON — After weeks of secretive talks, a bipartisan group in the Senate edged closer Monday to a health care compromise that omits two key Democratic priorities but incorporates provisions to slow the explosive rise in medical costs, officials said.

These officials said participants were on track to exclude a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite President Barack Obama's support for such a plan."

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NOt really a surprise, but it means negotiations with the House are going to be knockdown dragout.

Sen Baucus may be a Democrat, but he fails to understand that a healthcare reform bill without a public option is the goal of all those lobbyists spending $1.4mil a day on Capitol Hill, and the Repubs they own, and it will result in a plan that will be defeated.

He understands what his donors have paid him for perfectly well.

You may be right, but I suspect he is trying to get 'something' with bipartisan support passed.

I was giving him benefit of the doubt but reforming health insurance is laudable, only if we don't put money at it thinking we're improving health care.

...and then there's the House tri-committee version.

Let's see if I have this straight: The two Senate versions get harmonized and blended and chopped and channelled first, then that compromise gets voted out by the whole Senate, and then it and the House version go off to conference, where effectively a third beast, that both is, and isn't any (either?) of its predecessors will emerge.

Then that goes to the floor of both Houses, for another vote.

We still have no idea what The Bill will look like.

...because there are taxes in the bill, and the Constitution requires tax bills to orignate in the House.

(Unless the entire Senate passes a version which doesn't raise any taxes.)

...John Kerry and Charles Schumer, and so a bill with no public option won't unanimously be voted out of the committee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Committee_on_Finance

can do whatever they feel like, screw the people. That is until the Dems get the presidency and the HOuse and the Senate, then things will REALLY change!