Tax News

CCH (cch.taxgroup.com) reports:

  Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said he is confident a health care reform bill will reach the president's desk in 2009 "if we all work together...." Emerging with other Senate leaders from a White House luncheon meeting on August 4, Baucus said he wants a final bill to reform the health insurance industry, cut health care costs and garner 60 votes. When asked by a reporter, he did not say whether a final package must include a specific mechanism, such as a public option or non-profit co-op, to increase coverage for the uninsured.

  Baucus has been working diligently for months with other key senators in an effort to move forward a bipartisan bill that does not lose the support of Democratic members. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., stressed that Democrats and GOP members of Congress must come back from the August recess with a "new sense of purpose" to get the bill done.

  By Paula Cruickshank, CCH News Staff