Finance Committee negotiations stall

After being “on the edge of a deal” earlier this week, the Senate Finance Committee has stalled in its health care negotiations, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is no longer promising that the committee will finish its work before the August recess.

Reid would only say he was “cautiously optimistic” that the committee would vote on a bill before the summer break begins next Friday. But in another blow to President Barack Obama’s attempt to move a bill through Congress by the recess, there were signs Thursday that Senate Democrats would not meet the latest deadline.

A morning negotiation session between the three Republicans and three Democrats did not happen as expected, and no further group meetings have been scheduled – an unusual break from the daily talks that have been ongoing for weeks. Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) spoke individually with senators, but there was confusion among Democratic and Republican staff as all sides tried to figure out where the talks stood.

Republicans, meanwhile, emphasized for the second consecutive day that the bipartisan group was not ready to reach an agreement.

“We're trying to do some really crazy stuff on a really short time frame," Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), a member of the Finance committee, said Thursday.

The three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee are under increasing pressure from their leadership not to cut a deal anytime soon, according to sources, and that message has been delivered frequently in recent weeks.

Baucus wanted to show progress on the negotiations before the August recess, either by announcing a deal or releasing the framework of a bill. He presented the senators Thursday with options for moving the process forward, sources said.

But Republicans decided that they did not want to operate on the Democratic timeline, GOP aides said. Despite the uptick in criticism from Enzi and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), there were no plans for them to leave the negotiations, aides said, but there is a desire to slow down the process.

"The Democrats' rush to produce a bill outline before recess was based more on political needs than policy progress," a GOP aide said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy.

Grassley told National Public Radio Wednesday morning that the bipartisan group was "on the edge" of a deal by the weekend — an assessment he has walked back since then.


Source: politico.com