Okay, the Baucus health care bill may be in an inchoate form, but nevertheless it got out of committee by a vote of 14 to 9. Maine’s Olympia Snowe is the only Republican who voted for the bill. All 13 Democrats said yes. Yahoo erroneously describes it as “a centrist-leaning compromise bill.”
It is a left-leaning bill that will cost untold (literally untold–the Congressional Budget Office is scoring a bill that is still in “conceptual” rather than actual form) money and drastically change our polity. It was always going to get out of committee, but Snowe’s help is a blow. She will give wavering Democrats lots of cover to vote for the bill.
Flirt from Maine: Snowe, however, who has been relentlessly courted by Democrats, signals that she’s still up for being wooed: “My vote today is my vote today and it does not forecast what my vote will be tomorrow,” Snowe said. Let’s hope she comes to her senses. But don’t count on it.