Grassley, Frustrated with WH, Says Baucus Bill Not Bipartisan

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports:

Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said today that while Chairman Max Baucus' has bipartisan elements in it, it is not a bipartisan bill.

“This bill, except for five or six or seven or eight or nine or 10 — I don't know how many — things that weren't resolved has been put together with some Republican input. But to say that this is a bipartisan bill would be as intellectually dishonest as the Secretary of HHS saying on television recently that because Republicans had 86 amendments put on the HELP bill that it was a bipartisan bill.”

Grassley was clearly frustrated with the White House and Senate Democrats for wanting Baucus, D-Mont., to move forward with the bill without full buy-in from Republicans.

“We're kind of pre-empted from doing it right by being pushed or shoved aside by the leadership and by the White House because they want to move on,” Grassley said. “Particularly in light of the fact that so much of this bill doesn't go into effect until 2013. So what's another two or three weeks, if it could be done in another two or three weeks and end up with a bill that could have broad bipartisan support. “

And he said the White House caused strains in the negotiations this summer by saying Grassley, R-Iowa, was not negotiating in good faith.

“We've had 31 meetings of these group of six. We've had nine walk-throughs. I've had 156 meetings in my office dealing with health care, either with constituents or with other members. . . . And then to be accused of being political in the month of August when [I] didn't say anything different in Iowa than what I've been saying in Washington. That's not a very good environment to carry on a conversation,” he said.

Grassley danced around the fundraising letter his campaign sent to supporters in August that said he was working to defeat “Obamacare.” Today, Grassley said “Obamacare” was meant in that letter to represent the “public option.”

Several Democrats expressed optimism about the Baucus Bill.

Said Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.: “It looked good.”

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., praised it as a measure that would bring “a lot of very positive transformation in the way we deliver health care.”

“Are there some pieces in it that I disagree with? Yes. And we're going to try to work on those,” Kerry said. “I think that people ought to feel positive about what's going on here. We're going to get a bill done, one way or the other. We will make changes in it.”

Kerry said one of his amendments would change the formula by which insurance companies are taxed for offering the high-cost insurance plans that many believe drive up the cost of care.

Many such plans are used by union members and Kerry said its important not ton pin health reform on “the workin' guy.”

Other amendments, he said, would tackle the affordability of insurance for the middle class.

Others said it needed more work. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said, “I think it needs more than just a few tweaks.”

Grassley on White House Admonitions, Fighting “Obamacare”

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: Sen. Charles Grassley’s office is firing back at White House adviser David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs for saying the three Republican negotiators still seeking a bipartisan health reform compromise are not coming to the table in good faith.

“If you’re sitting at a table negotiating in good faith, then you probably don’t send out mailers saying, ‘Help me stop Obama-care.’ That’s just common sense,” Axelrod told the Wall Street Journal, adding that a fundraising mailer sent by Grassleyand a speech made over the weekend by Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming “suggested they don’t want to participate” in bipartisan talks. “They’re satisfied with the status quo. We are not,” said Axelrod.

“Attacks by political operatives in the White House undermine bipartisan efforts and drive senators away from the table,” said Grassley’s spokesperson Jill Kozeny in an email today.

She also explained the fundraising letter:

“The Grassley fundraising letter was mailed on August 7. It describes Senator Grassley’s opposition to the government-run plan in the House and HELP committee bills. The President supports a government-run option. Senator Grassley has opposed a government-run plan all year. He’s talked with the President about it directly, starting March 6, at the White House summit on health care, during the televised re-cap session at the end of the day. There’s nothing new in the letter. It says the same thing Senator Grassley has said throughout the debate this year.

In a conference call with Iowa reporters that was posted on his Senate website Tuesday.Grassley, R-Iowa,employed a near-Rumsfeldian definition of “Obamacare” to explain the fundraising letter, which was posted on the Washington Post website Monday.

A reporter asked Grassley about trying to raise funds to help him defeat Obamacare.

“What is Obamacare?” the reporter asked him.

Grassley: “There isn’t really a bill out there but people think there’s a bill out there and people in journalism think there’s a bill out there because they keep referring to Obamacare just like some magic bill came up from the White House that Congress is considering. So if people think everything we’re doing is Obamacare, then it's Obamacare whether it really is or isn’t.”

Reporter: “Aren’t you raising money based on the fact that you’re asking people to give you money to fight against something that in this committee you are…”

Grassley: “Oh no. No, it’s the two bills that are out there. We don’t have a product out there that anybody can look at or anything that I could speak about. You’re talking about the bill of Sen. Dodd’s committee, used to be Sen. Kennedy’s committee, a very partisan bill. And you’re talking about the House bill that Pelosi is going to be putting together that came out of Rep. Waxman’s committee.

“And these are the bills, quite frankly, if you want something that is the essence of Obamacare even though it didn’t come from the White House, it’s the House bill mainly that’s on the Internet, that people are reading and they don’t like.”

With Axelrod and Gibbs turning their aim at Grassley, he is officially getting it from both sides. In a separate interview, posted on the website of the Kaiser Family Foundation, he acknowledged that there is frustration among Republicans that he continues to seek middle ground.

Asked if he had been criticized by Republican leaders for seeking bipartisanship, Grassley said, “Not to my face, but I think to my back, I have.”

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: The six bipartisan Senate Finance Negotiators emerged from a closed-door, senators-only meeting in an office in the Capitol Building to declare that their talks will go on.

The group was at an impasse all day over how to proceed with their troubled quest to find middle ground on health reform.

The talks will go on, the negotiators announced today. But there will be no consideration of a finished bill next week as Democrats had hoped. Senators are scheduled to adjourn for a month August 7th, so the health care debate is sure to drag long into the Fall.

Sen. Charles Grassley spoke on-camera and was animated when he said part of the problem for negotiators is that journalists are too hungry to report on what?s going on behind the closed doors of the meeting room. The talks have progressed for weeks in the Capitol Office of Sen. Max Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee.

?You folks keep looking for the news and there ain?t no news,? he said.

Grassley brushed off reports that the three Republican negotiators ? Grassley, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Washington and Mike Enzi of Wyoming were being pressured by other Republicans to abandon the talks.

?Do we look like we?ve been pressured,? exclaimed Grassley to the scrum of reporters that crowded in the cramped hallway waiting to see if the bipartisan negotiators could find common ground to keep their talks going.

Baucus ceded that there would be no bill for the full committee to consider next week, as Democratic leaders had hoped. But he said it was more important to get a bipartisan bill.