Nearly the entire freshman Democratic class in the Senate sent a letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., telling him to keep cutting costs from his bipartisan health care plan.
The letter sends a strong signal to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., that any final senate bill will probably have to look a lot more like the yet-completed Baucus proposal, which is shrinking in cost, than the Kennedy bill, which has a $1 trillion price tag and calls for the creation of a massive government insurance option.
The letter was initiated by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Michael Bennett, D-Colo. and included every freshman Democrat except for Al Franken, D-Minn.
“We hear daily from our constituents about this issue,” the letter says. “Many of them are concerned that we are not doing enough to control costs. We strongly urge the Senate Finance Committee to continue to remain centered on realigning incentives to stabilize health care costs.”
The senate will ultimately need 60 votes to pass the bill, if it wants to do so without having to subject parts of it to certain defeat. Democrats control just 60 votes so they are going to have to win the backing of their own moderate members, including their freshman, many of whom are from swing states.
Baucus and a small group of bipartisan Senators on Friday continued work on putting together a bipartisan plan that would create a national health insurance co-operative. Baucus and Reid met early Friday with President Obama to talk about the bill.
