Montana is unlikely center for uproar about health care reform - MedCity Morning Read, Aug. 20, 2009

BOZEMAN, Montana — Home during summer break from Congress, Sen. Max Baucus has been meeting with constituents around Montana, an unlikely epicenter for the nation’s divisive and disruptive talk about how to cover most Americans with health insurance and whether the nation should have another government-sponsored health insurance program, according to the New York Times.

As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Baucus has become a leader in the nation’s debate about health care reform and one of the only hopes for reform measures that can satisfy both Democrats and Republicans. His committee has beenÂ trying toÂ craft bipartisan health care overhaul legislation to vie with Democratic legislation from another Senate committee and three House committees.

Some experts believe that hope for a so-called public option — a government-run health insurance program that could compete with private insurers — is fading, according to the Los Angeles Times. So Democrats and Republicans have begun sparring about an alternative –Â a series of private regional cooperatives that could achieve the goals of a public plan without the potential for government interference, the L.A. Times said.

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As for Baucus, after speaking at a preventive-care conference in Bozeman last week, he was swarmed with protesters, the N.Y. Times said. Baucus, who has traveled his state for 31 years as a senator, called those protesters “agitators, whose sole goal was to intimidate, disrupt, and not let any meaningful conversation go on,” according to the N.Y. Times.

Some critics charge that Baucus is too close to the pharmaceutical and health care industries to lead an unbiased discussion about how to reform health care, the N.Y. Times said. The proportion of Montana residents who lack health insurance is 16.4 percent, higher than the national average of 15.5 percent, the Times said. Health care is one of the state’s biggest industries.

Still, there is a level of civic pride among Montanans that one of their own — Baucus is a fifth-generation resident who comes form a rich ranching family — could rise to such a level of nationalÂ prominence, the N.Y. Times said.

Despite some dispiriting days for the cause of bipartisan health care reform, Baucus still believes that reform is “inevitable” this year, according to the Times.