In a letter to Obama today, Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Ted Kennedy, chair of the health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, not only outlined a timeframe for health reform but also put forward a strategy for overcoming the turf warfare of years past. The key bit:
Since our committees share jurisdiction over health care reform legislation in the Senate, we have jointly laid out an aggressive schedule to accomplish our goal. Both committees plan to mark-up legislation in early June. Our intention is for that legislation to be very similar, and to reflect a shared approach to reform, so that the measures that our two committees report can be quickly merged into a single bill for consideration on the Senate floor.
That’s a far cry from 1994, when different committees — including Kennedy’s HELP Committee — reported wildly different bills to the floor. The variance in legislative product made it all the harder for Democrats to unite behind a single piece of legislation.
Kennedy and Baucus are now promising “very similar” pieces of legislation. That’s a big deal. That means whatever product emerges, it will have to prove acceptable to both the liberals who populate HELP and the moderates who stack Finance.
Full press release — and letter — below the fold.
