The Waiting Room

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 Democrats and Republicans in the Finance Committee,” they wrote, “and believe there is a responsibility for both sides of the aisle to work together to develop a bill that will earn strong support from the full Senate.”

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), on the other hand, took a swipe at Baucus, claiming that Baucus could have had a bipartisan bill if he hadn’t rushed the process. “Another couple weeks would have given us an opportunity to have a bipartisan bill that I think would have gotten broad-based support,” he told CNBC this morning.

Baucus may be touting the Congressional Budget Office’s score of his bill, but he can’t be too happy about the CBO’s assessment of the role of co-ops in the legislation. “The proposed co-ops had very little effect on the estimates of total enrollment in the exchanges or federal costs because, as they are described in the specifications, they seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country or to noticeably affect federal subsidy payments,” the CBO wrote.

For a summary of where the competing health care bills in the House and Senate will go from here, take a look at this post from The New Republic.

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