The Baucus debacle gets worse on a daily basis. Now that the parade has passed him by, he says he's ready to mark up a bill the week of September 21, months behind his original deadline of April. He spent all these months getting played by the Republican members of the Baucus Caucus, and if you can believe Orrin Hatch, it's all for naught, at least in terms of getting Republicans on board.
That never happened, but through some pretty tricky work by some of those Republicans, and Max's buddies in industry, and with the apparent blessing of the White House, they got the insurance companies on board. Consider Wellpoint, which basically wrote the thing, along with Blue Dog Mike Ross's amendment in the House Energy and Commerce committee. And this part is really rich--another key contributor to the legislation is another, current Wellpoint lobbyist, who used to work for Mike Enzi. The Republican who isn't going to vote for the bill.
Here's how Consumer Watchdog describes Enzi's contribution to the Baucus debacle.
A "framework plan" released today by the so-called "Group of Six" Senators negotiating a health reform bill headed by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) would open the door to gutting state laws. The plan would result in a "race to the bottom" in health care regulation by allowing insurance companies that participate in "health care compacts" to choose the weakest state law to govern all their policies, regardless of which state the policies are sold in. Currently, insurance companies must abide by the state laws of any state where they sell insurance. The Baucus plan resembles an industry proposal carried by Mike Enzi (R-WY) in 2006....
** Loss of state benefit mandates would allow exclusion of preventive treatments and exams, prevent early diagnosis of disease and evade Patient Bill of Rights laws passed in nearly every state. Denying access to such basic preventive care makes treatment more costly to the policyholder and ultimately to taxpayers, who pick up the bill when individuals cannot pay outrageous out-of-pocket costs.
** State laws providing consumers the right to appeal a coverage denial to an independent panel of physicians, a right to a second opinion, and assistance from state regulators when coverage is denied would all be lost under the Enzi approach.
** Individual patients who currently have the ability to hold insurers financially accountable for injuries caused by the denial or delay of necessary care would lose those rights if they joined the Enzi co-op.
Cute trick for Enzi, completely gut the original Baucus plan so that there's no danger of his insurance buddies having to face effective reform, and keep his Republican cred by not voting for the thing anyway. Of course, that couldn't be done without Max Baucus's willingly playing along.
There's at least one encouraging aspect in all of this: the White House has clued into how bad the optics of this cozy industry Baucus debacle looks, if you can judge by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' remarks:
GIBBS: I was told that — that K Street had a copy of the Baucus plan, meaning, not surprisingly, the special interests have gotten a copy of the plan that I understand was given to committee members today.
Given that that's not a surprise for the White House, let's hope that they treat the resulting bill as what it is, a D- effort that not only is someone else's work, but is utterly without principle. Nothing demonstrates that more than Baucus's willingness not only to turn the bulk of the proposal over to industry, but to also capitulate in the face of the most egregious crazy, extremist Republican lies about healthcare reform.
Death panels? Check. Never mind that they don't exist and never have, Baucus has pulled end of life counseling provisions from his bill. So millions of seniors and terminal patients and their families will continue to experience the pain and confusion of their last days, if Max gets his way.
And the latest ridiculousness: appeasing the right-wing crazy Congressman who is potentially facing censure in the House of Representatives for his egregious behavior. Oh, and who by the way was lying about that whole illegal immigrant thing. By all means, Max, let the right-wing fringe set policy in your bill.
Baucus, as David Waldman has so succinctly put it, isn't a closer, and shouldn't be given any other critical policy bill to mess up. But in the meantime, the big question now is what the White House and the real Senate Finance Committee is going to do with that hugely flawed piece of legislation he's going to present.