Democrats' gain momentum with Finance Comittee vote, what now?

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus may as well have won the lottery yesterday when his committee voted 14-9 to pass their version of a health care bill that has taken center stage of what has been an agonizing months long debate.

His bill does everything that President Obama outlined in his address to congress last month: it expands coverage, lowers costs, comes in under $900 Billion, reduces the deficit over 10 years, and even has a small amount of bipartisan cred with moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine giving it her aye vote. Still, as Winston Churchill once said: "This isn't the end, nor is it the beginning of the end, rather this is the end of the beginning."

Senate Democrats are far from united, and Snowe's lone Republican vote can't be taken for granted, (she said herself "my vote today may not be my vote tomorrow.") With such a widely diverse caucus, finding a final bill that pleases everyone seems to be a nearly impossible task with both liberal and moderate Democrats both saying they're unsatisfied with what may be the final result. This will be the true test of Obama's legislative leadership, and also of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's ability to do the real backroom dealmaking that delivers votes.

Liberal Senator Jay Rokefeller of West Virginia, a member of the finance committee, who has made clear his die-hard support for a governemnt sponsored public option that was absent in negotiations, had his own Snowe-esque statement regarding the bill: “...Let me be crystal clear – this yes vote is not an endorsement of this bill as it stands today. My vote is a pledge to continue on the Senate Floor and in Conference the fight for policies that work and represent the real needs of West Virginia families.”

And Joe Liberman, the moderate Independent who's chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee was saved by President Obama early this year from vengeful Democrats angry at his campaigning for John McCain, poked more holes in Reid's plans to get an all-hands-on-deck 60 vote majority with statements this morning on a radio show where he said he didn't support the bill the way it is now and that he was afraid that "the Bacus bill was going to raise health insurance prices for most of the people in the country."

Democratic leaders must now channel their inner LBJ and do whatever it takes to get votes and play virtual whack-a-mole with dissenting members who think they can have more leverage in the debate by holding out their vote and keeping their cards close to their chest. In the House, which has been quiet on health care in the face of the senate vote is trying to corral their own much more liberal caucus, while at the same time not endangering their more moderate members whos seats are already being salivated over by Republicans. A not-as-dead-as-you-thought party anxious to take advantage of the souring public mood and the lack of results of many of the Democrats' initiatives on the economy. They are hoping that the House bill tacks to the left so that they can pound those vulnerable Democrats for being out of touch with their constituents, and in the permanent Washington campaign, every vote is an advertisement or a fundraising tool for the other side.

If Americans are already tired of the health care debate after more than 5 months of congressional sausage making, then they're in for a rude awakening, because this thing hasn't even gotten off the ground yet.