What if the Senate just ignores Baucus?

Two Senate committees have looked at the health reform issue.

One, the Senate HELP Committee, has already written a bill and voted on it (just like the three committes in the House). The other is the Senate Finance Committee, where everything is being held hostage to Baucus' doomed effort to get any Republican to support any provision that moves us beyond the status quo.

So could the Senate just say -- well, we've got one bill written, let's just vote on that, the other bill will take forever to get through committee and nobody will like the finished product anyway....?

It depends on whether Reid has the votes (likely) and the balls (less likely).

If LBJ were running the Senate, we'd be done by now. He would have kissed, kicked, cajoled every member of the Senate until it was done.