Apparently Max Baucus thinks he solved the healthcare crisis because Olympia Snowe says so.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) staked a powerful claim Tuesday that his health care bill is about as far as his party is willing to go in turning the president’s vision of reform into reality.
And it was a Republican — Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine — who helped him stand up to his party’s liberals.
.....
He sent a clear message to progressives who consider Baucus’s bill little more than a good start, a floor from which to build their bill of their dreams:
Don’t mess with a good thing.
"My compass is going to be to get a bill that is solid, balanced and fair and doesn’t go too far in one direction or another," Baucus said. "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it."
That is a lot of chutzpah, for a guy who got five-plus Dem votes from people who thought the bill sucked, but were under instructions to move it forward anyway and held their noses and did it. Max Baucus seems to think mediocrity is good enough for the American people when it comes to fixing this mess, cuz President Snowe told him so.
Maybe he should listen to that other President, who said:
Now, this bill is not perfect and we have a lot of difficult work ahead of us.