After Baucus Unveils Bill, What's Next???

From NBC's Ken Strickland
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has finally unveiled his version of the health-care reform bill. Now what?

Here's a look at what comes next en route to getting the bill to a final vote on the Senate floor...

First, the full committee -- and the public -- will now get a chance read the details of the bill. But, as you'll read below, some of these details will likely change next week. Still, of all the other health-care bills moving through Congress (three in the House, one in the Senate,) the Finance bill more closely resembles what President Obama wants in cost and substance, except it doesn't have a public option.

On Tuesday the 22nd, the committee starts the "mark up," voting on amendments to change the bill. We suspect there will be lots of them -- lots. After a few days of amendments, the committee will take a last vote to approve the bill and send to it the full Senate. Baucus seems convinced that after the amendment process, some Republicans will vote in favor of the bill. We'll see.

Once the Finance bill is approved, it has to be merged with the Senate HELP committee bill before it can go to the floor. This should be interesting because the HELP bill has a public option, and the Finance bill more than likely won't when it's passed out of committee. It's Majority Leader Harry Reid's job to pick what's in the bill that goes to the floor.

When will the merged bill get to the Senate floor?


http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/09/16/2071448.aspx

Strip down everything except the cost and the substance, and ask that the amendment be amended as needed to make this a robust public option and Amendment 2 to the Baucus Bill, is that the bill's name be stripped to "Base Bill of Finance Committee"

public option. We're getting down to the meat and potatoes now, ladies and gentlemen. Hold on, it's gonna be a bumpy ride, so continue to call and email your reps. and the whitehouse.

So Obama is going to be on every channel in the next week including Letterman pushing this.

THIS travesty of a bill by Baucus which could have been written by a Republican-THAT's what Obama supports?

That's what he's going to push? Then his support for health reform is a sham like the bill is a sham.

The HELP bill is closest to what Ted Kennedy wanted. WHY isn't Obama pushing that?

And no matter what WE do the Republicans support nothing. What is the point of courting them? WHAT? It's bullshit and it makes Obama look like a fool. And oh yeah-Baucus is supposedly a Democrat-so this bill is supposedly somthing that has all our names on it. It makes me sick.