Meanwhile in the Senate Max Baucus had started an interminable process of attempting to obtain actual Republican input. This could have seemed to us here as a pure charade but the 6 Senators in Baucus's debating society had 30 ,2 hour meetings and the language in the emerging bill reflected input from the 3 Republican members and that convinced Lieberman and Ben Nelson to support that emerging bill.

Grassley , meanwhile , made encouraging noises but that was all they were, When Obama talked to him privately and asked (page 2ll) 'if he got every concession he was asking for , would he support the bill?' "Probably not" he said. He would only vote for it if a substantial number of other Republicans did , and they weren't going to.

Meanwhile in another part of the forest  Jim DeMint on July 17 said "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo."

And the ineffable Betsy McCaughey discovered that the bill was going to require seniors to justify their existence every five years. No refutation from pro-life Republican Senators prevented the media from joining the hunt for the imaginary death panels .Which have still not been found.

During summer recess the Tea Party swamped any appearance by dem legislators and this planned intimidation was reported as if it were a true public response.But the noise itself provided the excuse for the  Chamber of Commerce to move into opposition funded by an $86 million check from the association of health insurance plans.(page 218)

On Aug 25 Kennedy died,

When Congress returned Obama addressed a joint session which was also addressed by South Carolina's Rep Joe Wilson shouting "You lie".

When the last meeting of the Gang of Six produced no agreement Baucus drew a double line under its activities and produced his own bill. Meanwhile in Mass the state legislature passed a bill permitting the governor to appoint a replacement for Kennedy and there were once again 60 votes for a health care bill until January when Scott Brown was elected (page 226). But not for a public option which the Congressional Budget Office calculated would enroll less than 2% of the   population.

One drawback of the public option being considered at that point was that (page 226) "The ratio of Medicare to private insurance rates varied regionally.Democrats from states where Medicare payments were especially low opposed a public option  keyed to Medicare rates.....But without the benefit of paying low Medicare rates ,the public option might not be cheaper than private insurance which the CBO said meant it would "probably have higher premiums than those of private plans".

Finally there were two bills-from the House and the Senate but no longer 60 democratic senators so the House and Senate leaders devised the plan where the House approved the Senate bill then modified it  (page 232) with a separate budget reconciliation bill similarly also requiring only a Senate majority.

In this process the Senate bill became more liberal including closing the donut hole- too late for me.

That's how it went. 

Postscript

On Diane Rehm's Labor Day program-about Dickens- Chris from St Louis sent an email asking whether the British people have just accepted the terrible treatment given the poor in Dickens' times or whether there was some thought of making reparations.

The guest Ruth Richardson, a British historian answered. essentially that's been done by the establishment of the National Health Service.