The Senate Finance Committee is viewable on CSPAN3, or streamed live on the CSPAN website. The first two parts of our liveblog is available here and here.

2:39: Baucus. All trying to get to same end, improve health care system. Consistency, coherence. My job is to put together a bill that will get 60 votes. No one has been able to show me how to get to 60 votes. I included public option in white paper. Would help to hold insurance company feet to fire.

[Baucus I guess has forgotten what a majority is and how many Democrats are in there I guess MaxTax can't count the number of those who caucus with Dems.]

Blahblahblahblah.

2:31: Cornyn. Entitlements we have threaten to bankrupt this country. [No, wars of choice threaten to bankrupt this country] If there are no insurance companies offering health care plans, that leaves federal govt. Medicare poor model to replicate. When policy makers decide what will be in the plan antithesis of what we ought to do. Adding yet another govt program will make the problems worse. Taking money out of Medicare to fund new proposal. Medicare riddled with waste fraud and abuse.

[Asshole says taking this fraud money out of Medicare is taking it out of Medicare.]

Cornyn. Govt bad govt bad govt bad govt bad govt bad govt bad govt bad govt bad govt bad govt bad. The AMA say they don’t believe it would help. Mayo Clinic said it would bankrupt the country. [Funny, the actual DOCTORS as well as Mayo actually support this--and haven't you heard from Bunning how few doctors are part of AMA?] No public option for Senators. Ought to have same choices among private coverage as govt, this would deny them those choices.

[Bill Nelson skips his turn, waiting for Schumer]

2:20: Kerry. Our friends on other side of aisle are arguing about public plan that is not being talked about. Keep using Medicare and Medicaid, as reason why Rockefeller ought not be accepted. Rockfeller’s plan is not entitlement. Medicare and Medicaid, special populations. This, by law, required to pay for itself. Must operate by same rules as private plans. Question really has to be asked, what are friends afraid of? Competitive choice? Protecting insurance companies?We’re talking about care. We’re talking about people who have paid for years but cast out. Affordable set of alternatives. Public plan wrong name for this. Not going to have those subsidies. Premiums themselves paid have to pay the load. 25% goes to profit and admin. 30% in individual market. 30% profit for someone who gets sick who doesn’t even get the care they paid for. A lot of our good health care comes with federal dollars. NIH, NSF. 25% at the expense of people to have the ability to take care of themselves? So-called cost-shifting. That has been debunked by MedPac. MedPac, high profit levels of private insurance permit the hospitals to spend more. A lot of people angry about the way people get treated by insurance. Several billions transferred into pockets of executives. Strongly support this measure. Market will work its magic with this option. Some way of providing real competition. 

2:10: Crapo. Medicare rates. $113 billion reductions in Medicare Advantage rates. What other changes? 

[Crapo doesn't look like his name. I've leave that observation there.]

[Pay based on accuracy, if higher than costs justify, host of provisions relating to market basket adjustments, require increased productivity.]

WRT those provisions, net budget impact? 

[I don't have most recent number, north of $400 billion.]

That’s adequate, thank you very much. Opposition to proposal for govt option. Most debate on choice and competition. Strongly believe that if we were to adopt govt option, reduce choice and reduce competition. Govt run plan really only sure way to reduce competition. 

I personally think that studies show that public option will drive people out of sector, govt run plan with ability to set prices, 118 million losing their private insurance. [Hey, don't you want to tell us the study was sponsored by the insurance companies? And we have only our shitty insurance to lose!!] Reduction in quality. [Then the insurance companies should be able to compete, right???] In this one part of Medicare (Medicare Advantage), high levels of satisfaction.  We have two major govt health care systems, Medicare, Medicaid. [I guess our service men and women and veterans don't count??] Another major entitlement, and have got run it as well. Large transition. Anybody that paid attention in August, significant amount of unhappiness about govt run health care. What can we do to improve competition. Need to expand private sector. [I need a macro for "we need to expand competition across state lines"]

[When did Republicans become such opponents of state's rights??]

Experience has shown that govt is not going to provide that competition.

2:02: Cantwell. Medicare and Medicaid rates–you would pay rates based on current law. Under current bill, rates would be different than they are today. [Based on new bill] So if you were from an efficient state, like Conrad’s, you’d be making more money than you are now. Important part to debate, on public option. My view is about market competition and market forces. I certainly believe we’re spending at least half the money to tax subsidies to buy insurance that’s expensive insurance. I’d like to see more competition to that. One can be federal govt. Why do I want to see that competition? Wages only gone up 29%, insurance premiums go up 129%, insurance profits 428% we know where the money came from, it came from insurance premiums. Extraordinary profits in short period of time. What are we going to do to restore competition so somebody isn’t walking away with the store. Credit card companies are now gouging consumers even though we supposedly passed a law. To say nothing of the drug companies. Instead of adopting having clout in marketplace, we went to private sector, I’d ask anybody to look at price of prescription drugs in last few years. Are we going to stand with public and use bulk purchasing power of the public to drive down cost. I support public option to do that. That will drive down costs by using that power in the marketplace. I’d support other amendments that would allow private sector to participate. That’ll be another debate. This debate is really about whether we’re going to have the kind of competition that will help us with 94% consolidation. Cost shifting, probs in the market place, CMS is going to have to pay a rate that will attract physicians. But if we do nothing, and the rates go up another 120% in the private sector, which is what everyone agrees is going to happen if we do nothing. Stand on side of competition. American people want us to stand on their side to end unrelenting increase they’ve seen. 

1:56: Bunning still droning on.  People in Congress and staffs and people in Admin and their staffs and judiciary and their staffs. Some of my grandkids are not capable of telling me what they want on insurance. [But that's assuming I'm capable of telling them what they want on insurance.] If we have single payer we’re going to restrict what is available. I heard profits mentioned.

[Now Bunning is arguing for single payer!!]

1:51: Bunning: A lot of charts being used. Market share of two largest insurers by states. If insurers could sell across state lines. Many more insurance companies bidding for business. In 1992 KY General Assembly passed restrictive laws, 48 competitive companies at that time, after law, 1.5 insurance company bidding on health care. [Bunning is pretty much making the case for public option here,but he's too thick to realize it.] If we’d allow to sell across state lines, we’d have many more bidding to do business. I hope everyone realizes that only 20% of doctors belong to AMA.

[Bunning is a colossally stupid man. He's undercutting the argument Ensign was just making--which was that AMA is opposed to public option, and instead ignoring that polls of ALL doctors is a better read on public option, showing that doctors prefer public option, it's just the lobbyists who don't.]