finance committee

Over a complete Republican boycott, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed its climate bill last week by a vote of 11-1. The lone dissenter was Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) — a name you’ll be hearing a lot more if you’re keeping tabs on the climate debate. Baucus chairs the powerful Finance Committee and [...]

With so much speculation on whether Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) will support the health reform bill finalized by the Senate Finance Committee last week, the world might be surprised to learn that some panel Democrats are also wary of the legislation. Yet Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have both “refused to pledge [...]

Citing time restraints, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) just announced that the controversial public option amendments being offered by Sens. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) will be pushed to next Tuesday, when lawmakers return to Washington after a long weekend.
The health reform bill moving through the finance panel this week would [...]

Here’s a quick wrap-up of today’s health care news.
More reactions to the Baucus bill today. Four key moderate senators — Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and the most key moderate senator, Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) — penned a statement praising Baucus’ efforts. “We are encouraged by his commitment to work with both [...]

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has, for months, bent over backward to piece together a health reform proposal capable of winning at least some GOP support, which will be necessary to defeat a likely Republican filibuster. In the process, however, he’s alienating some members of his own caucus.
Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who [...]

After all the threats, tirades and political posturing surrounding the importance of winning a bipartisan health reform bill, it appears that the legislation being drafted by leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, headed by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), is on its way to attracting no Republicans after all.
Or so says Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a [...]

The New York Times today does a nice job pointing out some of the limitations of the co-op coverage model being pushed by “Gang of Six” member Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) as an alternative to the government-backed option preferred by the White House and Democratic leaders. Conrad says the public plan proposal simply doesn’t have [...]

Remember just a few weeks ago when Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the upper-chamber leaders on health care reform, announced their intention ‘[to] report similar and complementary legislation that can be quickly merged into one bill for consideration on the Senate floor before the August recess?”
Good luck.
With the arrival earlier this week [...]

Yesterday we mentioned that Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee and a fierce opponent of public health plans, had left the door open to including a public option in the sweeping health care reforms he’s currently drafting with panel Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.).
Today Grassley all but eliminated the possibility [...]

With so many bailouts, anti-foreclosure plans and recession-mitigation strategies coming out of the Treasury Department in recent months, it’s easy to forget that Secretary Tim Geithner has been working all along without a right-hand man.
The Senate Finance Committee took a step to remedy that this morning, approving the nomination of former Clinton administration attorney Neal [...]