Grassley: Chances for bipartisan health bill 'up in the air'

The Senate Finance Committee's ability to produce a bipartisan healthcare bill is "up in the air" since President Obama announced his speech before Congress Wednesday, the committee's ranking member said Tuesday.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member and key GOP negotiator for healthcare reform, indicated that the committee's self-imposed September 15th deadline to produce a bill had to be bumped forward a week after Obama made known that he'd lay out his own healthcare priorities in the joint session speech.

"I think things have changed since the president decided to give his speech," Grassley said in a teleconference with Iowa reporters. "Whether or not we'll have a bipartisan proposal by today, tomorrow is pretty much up in the air."

Grassley said that the committee's members would meet at 2:30 this afternoon to discuss the preliminary bill authored by committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) this past week. Most notably, that compromise proposal is said to include a tax on high-value insurance plans, but exclude a public (or "government-run") health insurance option.

Grassley lamented the timing of the president's speech as well, saying it forced Baucus to unveil his own bill before the address tomorrow night.

"I wish the president had waited a week to give his speech, but he is an independent person, an independent branch of government," the Iowa Republican explained. "Sen. Baucus thought that if the president's going to put forth a program, the president should know what the Finance Committee stands for."