Hatch abandons bipartisan talks for health-care reform

Sen. Orrin Hatch walked away Wednesday from the "gang of seven" bipartisan talks aimed at developing compromise health-care legislation, now making it the "gang of six" instead.

That is a setback to President Barack Obama's call for health-care reform that both parties can support.

"It is going to be difficult for me to support what they are talking about," Hatch, R-Utah, told reporters in Washington shortly after he informed Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., that he was dropping out of the group. Seven members of that committee had been working on a bipartisan compromise.

In a later news release, Hatch said, "It has become increasingly clear to me that Senator Baucus has not been given the flexibility necessary to construct a realistic health-care reform bill than can achieve true bipartisan support."

Hatch said in his news release that "I have found ways to work with very liberal members" on a wide array of issues in the past, "and compromise has been forged for the good of the American people." But he said such bipartisanship has largely slipped away on health-care reform.

"The head of the Congressional Budget Office told us in no uncertain terms that the health-care policies being pursued by this Congress will only worsen our deficit, create more joblessness, expand unsustainable entitlement programs that are driving our states bankrupt and start us down a path of a Washington-driven health-care system," he said.

"It is clear that people are frustrated with the ill-conceived and costly stimulus exercise and do not believe we should take the same rushed approach to health care," Hatch added.

He said that he became concerned in the discussions "that the president and congressional leaders have, to date, been unwilling to roll up their sleeves and agree to protect a bipartisan health-care compromise from being gutted on the Senate floor and in a conference with the House."

Hatch wished the other members seeking compromise well, and he pledged to "continue to work on solving our nation's health-care problems in a way that best protects the health and financial well-being of families and small business across the nation."

He said he has not given up all hope. "If we are responsible in our policy approaches, we can get meaningful reform done this year," he said.

The "group of six" remaining include Baucus and fellow Democrats Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico. Republican senators in the group include Charles Grassley of Iowa, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Mike Enzi of Wyoming.

e-mail: lee@desnews.com