“My job is to get this bill across the finish line,”

A Senate committee drafting health care legislation soundly rejected two versions of a proposed government-run program Tuesday. Supporters of the “public option” vowed to resurrect the provision later this fall. Moderate Democrats twice voted with a unanimous bloc of 10 Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee to beat back attempts by more liberal Democrats to insert the public option into the $900 billion, 10-year plan under consideration by the committee. Defeat of the public option underscored divisions among Democrats and bolstered predictions by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., that the proposal doesn’t have the support it needs to pass in the full Senate. “My job is to get this bill across the finish line,” said Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee and one of five Democrats who voted against the public option offered by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.(Taken from USA Today)