Max Baucus included a public option in his November 2008 whitepaper on health reform:
The Exchange would also include a new public plan option, similar to Medicare.
In May 2009, his Chief of Staff declared:
If you think your insurance company is screwing you … then you'd have the option of going to the public plan. Senator Baucus is fighting tooth and nail to include that in any final deal.
In August 2009, he told Montana Democrats:
I want a public option too!
Baucus said that the public option wasn't included in his bill only because it couldn't get 60 votes:
My job is to put together a bill that becomes law. I can count. Nobody has shown me a bill with a public option that gets to 60. So I am constrained to vote against the amendment.
Afterward he issued a statement:
I included a public option in the health reform blueprint I released nearly one year ago and continue to support any provision, including a public option, that will ensure competition and get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate.
When Aaron Swartz spoke to him in DC on March 10, 2010, he reiterated that this was his only concern. "I want health care reform this year," he said. Like Sen. Harkin, he wouldn't do anything that would jeopardize it. That means voting for a bill with a public option if it came from the House.