No Deal

Here's Mike Enzi:

We still have several areas where we haven't been able to come to a consensus. No deal is at hand and substantive issues, big and small, remain under discussion and need to be resolved. We need to keep working together.

I will need to see complete language and a final estimate from the Congressional Budget Office before I can agree to any health care reform bill.

I also need commitments from Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi, as well as the Administration, that the bipartisan agreements reached in the Finance Committee will survive in a final bill that goes to the President.

With this arrogant and laughably absurd statement (we will only consider exactly what I agree to and no more), Mike Enzi has finally made clear what a lot of us have been saying to Max Baucus all along: the Republicans are never going to deal in good faith, and this idea of a bipartisan bill is not going to happen. Democrats should move quickly now to pass a bill out of committee, and then go to the floor with a Democratic bill, and bone-crunching party discipline should be applied to get us past a filibuster attempt. It is time to move forward with a bill, end of story.