This is a stellar example of the principle of pre-emptive concessions to the other side, which can then ask for more concessions on top of those. Brilliant checkers playing, Max.

If you work hard to incorporate the opposition's points and they still oppose the bill, and clearly indicate they will oppose any bill, you have done your bipartisan due diligence and are free to pass whatever you have the votes to pass.

GOPs were invited to the game but refused to play.

Re: GOP support...two words- WHO CARES?

I'm done with those people. They want to fight everything, just on a whim or to be snarky or because they lost all of their majorities? Let them fight. Let them sulk.

On to the very important task at hand. Revising the bill(is the public option in there? I heard it wasn't), and getting healthcare passed.

His plan drops the mandates for business, but not for people, and includes financial penalties for people who don't.

Individual Mandate without the Public Option is a huge giveaway to the very Insurance & Pharma Companies that have run our system into the ground! The right thing to do when the people you negotiate with don't support the final product is that you remove everything they asked for and go back to your original plan. Of course this whole "bipartisan" BS that Baucus has been putting on a show of is just to give him cover for his complete and utter selling out of the American people to his Heath Care Industry finances.

Disgraceful!

Driving people to private insurance companies by POLICY is political suicide for the dems. Fining people is just plain insane. If the dems don't drop the mandate for individuals w/ no public option or employer mandate will cause us to lose the House and senate in 2010 and the White Jouse in 2012.

One must wonder if Baucus is just delusional in thinking that any Republicans will support actual healthcare reform or if he is such a whore to the insurance interests that he is simply going through the motions and humiliating himself publicly in service to them and their interests in return for enough campaign cash that he'll feel like he can get reelected despite the corruption of having whored himself to the insurance interests in opposition to the national interest of the people of the United States.

The headline here says the bill "...Tracks Closely With Obama's Principles."

This isn't even mentioned in the article. Who's making this claim... Baucus himself?
I'm a determined progressive who's unimpressed by Obama's performance thus far. In fact, I'm halfway convinced he's likely to settle for no public option. But nothing in this article says the finished, stupid Baucus bill is already to Obama's preference.

The Republicans are not worried about governing, they're worried about winning the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. They'd decided that forcing the Democrats to use budget reconciliation is a political winner for them. They're going to run on the "The Democrats don't bargain in good faith when they have such a majority, if you want us to be true counter-balance you need to give us a majority in either the House or Senate".

The public option will not happen until 2013, so there will be no pay-off to the reconciliation bill for two election cycles, so the GOP can point to how because the Dems didn't want to budge, they forced through a bad bill and nothing has happened to improve heath care. Then if the can recapture either the house or the senate they'll look to destroy the PO come 2013 when it has to be voted on again.

Nate Silver said that there is a 1 in three to 1 in four chance that the Republicans could take back the House this election. That's terrible odds for Dems, and over two cycles you have to imagine the odds are even worse.

I am entirely convinced that the entire push for bipartisan support has made it LESS likely that the bill or any other bill will receive any Republican support. If the Democrats and Obama did not appear weak indecisive and opportunistic, instead concentrated and defended THEIR ideas on what constitutes good health care reform, the public at large would have been more enthusiastic and I think the political dynamic would have pressured Republicans and others to support serious change. Instead we get an object lesson in how not to govern and how to squander political support and advantage. Obama may be a good politician; he does not have a clue on how to lead.