By Donna Smith
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As President Barack Obama prepares to make a fresh case for U.S. healthcare reform next week, a senator leading negotiations to craft bipartisan legislation said it was time to "take stock" of where those talks were going.
"After a month in our states, we'll sit down together on Tuesday, take stock of where we are and determine how to best pass real reform," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, said in a statement after a telephone conference with other Senate negotiators.
"I am committed to getting health care reform done - done soon and done right," he said.
But Baucus' statement -- that comes as the White House and many other Democrats appear to be all but giving up on the bipartisan talks in the face of widespread Republican opposition -- omitted any mention of the group's commitment to getting some support from Republicans, unlike past comments.
Three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee plan to meet again on Tuesday to assess how to move forward on overhauling the $2.5 trillion healthcare system.
The meeting will come a day before Obama makes a speech before a joint session of Congress in which he is expected to lay out his healthcare plans for wary lawmakers and an increasingly skeptical public.
Senator Olympia Snowe, the Republican negotiator widely seen as most likely to accept a deal on healthcare, issued a statement after the telephone meeting calling the talks "productive and constructive."
"When Congress returns to session next week, we will be working with the same intensity we've brought to bear this year to achieve a consensus bill," Snowe said.
Spokesmen for other members of the group declined comment, referring only to the chairman's statement.
If Baucus is unable to reach a bipartisan agreement with the group of six, which also includes Republican Senators Charles Grassley and Michael Enzi, he will likely move a bill with just Democrats -- and possibly Snowe, who has broken ranks with her fellow Republicans before, most notably in backing Obama's huge economic stimulus package earlier this year.
'HOME STRETCH'
"We're reaching the home stretch here - bipartisan if you can, Democrats only if we must is what (Baucus) is saying," said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank in Washington.
The White House has signaled its willingness to compromise, but insists that Obama still supports the so-called "public option" that would compete with private insurers, a provision strongly supported by the Democratic base but opposed by Republicans and insurance companies.
Snowe has proposed a "trigger" for such a new government program if insurers fail to meet certain reform benchmarks and provide affordable health insurance policies.
Baucus said the teleconference was "productive" and that Senate negotiators agreed on the need to "take control of healthcare costs and make health insurance affordable for families and small businesses."
He said they also agreed Americans should be able to choose an affordable quality healthcare plan and that the reform effort should not add to soaring budget deficits.
The Senate Finance Committee is one of two Senate panels writing the legislation that aims to rein in soaring costs and provide affordable coverage to uninsured Americans.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, under the leadership of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, approved its version of the legislation without Republican support.
The Senate Finance Committee has jurisdiction over major elements of the reform effort, including any savings in the Medicare and Medicaid health programs for the elderly and poor and taxes that would help pay for the nearly $1 trillion 10-year price tag.
(Reporting by Donna Smith; Editing by Vicki Allen)
