As chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) holds sway over the only remaining Senate committee still working on a markup of health care legislation. The HELP committee passed its version, which includes a public option, on July 15 by a party-line vote.

Baucus is working under the cover of "bipartisanship" with Sen. Charles Grassley and other Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats on the committee to satisfy his corporate health care donors, not the public. As the top recipient of the health care lobby's blood-stained dollars, Baucus is intent on running out the clock or putting together a bill that strips a public option from the final Senate legislation. Odds are even more remote Baucus's bill will include single-payer universal care (the only plan that would automatically cover 100 percent of all Americans).

Less than half of the campaign donations that Baucus receives come from his home state of Montana. His native support is soft, at best, without a counterbalance to the out-of-state insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital money that purchases his attention and got him elected for a sixth term just last year.

So it isn't Baucus's status as a moderate-to-conservative Democrat that makes him key. It isn't his hefty campaign war-chest, filled with $1.5 million in health lobby gold in just the last two years (more than $3 million from 2003-2008 and still growing). It's that Baucus chairs the committee central to paying for whatever reform emerges from the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Baucus this week to abandon bipartisanship and deliver a bill. He didn't. President Obama pleaded with Baucus to finish a bill. He hasn't.

And so, the Senate and House will adjourn for the August recess, with Republicans having a month to go home to their constituents and drum up opposition to the kind of reform that most Americans really want. The shit-storm is coming because Max Baucus is the lapdog of special interests who make their money denying coverage and care for sick and injured Americans.

THAT is why Max Baucus is key to health care reform and why it is vital to influence him in whatever way we can.