Baucus Bill May End Up Being a Mere Rough Draft

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 26, 2009

At precisely 11:53 a.m. Friday, after a full week of debate on his bill to refashion the nation's health-care system, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) rose from his chair and silently slipped out the back door.

Not a headline-grabbing moment, to be sure -- except that his panel was still deliberating.

It seems Baucus, the marathon runner who endured more than 35 hours of debate in an attempt to wear down his colleagues, was himself finally worn out.

Baucus has promised to resume committee work Tuesday. But the fight is increasingly shifting away from him and onto the Senate floor, where 99 other independent-minded lawmakers are already scheming about how to put their stamp on what could be the most significant piece of domestic-policy legislation in a generation.

In a plodding week of partisan sniping, the bill that was supposed to be President Obama's greatest hope for a grand bipartisan solution was instead described as little more than a decent rough draft, certain to be rewritten by others.

(Continued here.)