Baucus: 'Very good chance' many in GOP will support health bill

There's a "very good chance" a number of Republicans will support healthcare reform legislation crafted by the Senate Finance Committee, its chairman said Tuesday.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) insinuated that a non-trivial number of Senate Republicans may end up singing onto the health bill his committee has crafted by the time it comes up for a final vote on the Senate floor.

"We're close, we have to just keep working to see how many Republicans support the bill and at what time," Baucus told a gaggle of reporters this afternoon.

The Finance committee chairman said that the critical issue isn't whether a bipartisan agreement would be struck today, but rather when GOP lawmakers sign onto the bill in the weeks to come.

"The critical question is: Do we get bipartisan support sometime before we vote on the bill? And me guess is that we will," he said. "It could be as late as voting on the bill, I just don't know when. But I do think a decent number of Republicans will support it."

Baucus cited a "sense of inevitability" that some sort of health reform bill would pass this year, with few senators wanting to line up against any consensus bill.

"As we get closer to D-Day, I think it's more likely that they're going to be there," Baucus said of Republican support.

He said most of the details still to be hammered out in the Finance committee's bill center on small details, with no "dealbreakers" still left on the table.