Let me explain.
Right now, it seems he has all the cards - he's been putting together the Finance Committee bill in secret, with his gang of six, and it looks like that bill's going to be little more than warmed-over Romneycare. Kent Conrad's co-ops instead of a public option, no employer mandate, subsidies for people making only up to 300% of FPL.
Utter crap.
Baucus thinks he can get away with this because he lives in a relatively conservative state, he isn't up for re-election until 2014, and he's getting all that tasty lobbyist money from the insurance industry.
Follow the fold to see why Baucus isn't as invulnerable as he thinks he is...
If health care reform dies in the Senate, it might not hurt his reelection chances, but it'll hurt the election prospects of a bunch of his fellow Senate Democrats, a large number of House Democrats, and will give President Obama a huge black eye, and cause him to lose a huge amount of political capital he invested in the health care battle.
Do you think his fellow Democrats in Congress and the White House don't know this? Do you think they're going to take this lying down?
Nope, the long knives are about to come out. Henry Waxman demonstrated this with Mark Ross - markup's going to be back on because Waxman is now confident that H.R. 3200 will successfully pass a vote through his committee. Gee, how did that happen? Mike Ross got a spanking, he got threats of loss of pork, loss of DCCC funds, loss of endorsements from fellow Democrats, and all sorts of tactics designed to make his life a living hell. He was given a face-saving compromise, and told to take it, sit down and shut up.
The same thing will happen with Max Baucus. Just watch. He might be appearing to be winning now, and he'll probably crap his Finance Committee bill onto the floor with co-ops and all the junk reform successfully.
Then, President Obama, Chuck Schumer, and several other Democratic leaders will take him into a back room, explain the facts of life to him, inform him that the Finance Committee bill will be passed over in favor of the HELP bill, and tell him and the rest of the Blue Cross Dems to vote for it, sit down and shut up. Max may very well throw a hissy-fit as Mike Ross did, but in the face of Obama's likely veto threat of any bill without a public option, along with threats to take his chairmanship away, threats to cut him out of any future deals, etc., Baucus will be forced to relent. Even Harry Reid may show his fangs if Baucus doesn't take the face-saving compromise handed to him.
We'll end up getting a bill with a halfway decent, though imperfect public option passed through the Senate by reconciliation. Then it will be improved in conference committee and signed into law.
That's my bet. Obama and other Democrats will not put up with Baucus screwing over their reelection chances, and will get creative in finding ways to twist his arm...