Senate Panel Chief To Speak On Health Care, Sources Say

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee will make a significant announcement Wednesday regarding the process and timetable for health care legislation, according to two Democratic sources.

The chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, had set a 10 a.m. Wednesday deadline for negotiators to come up with counterproposals to a compromise plan he circulated the day before.

Among other things, Baucus' plan would drop the public option provision favored by many Democrats, allow for the creation of nonprofit health care cooperatives and tax insurance companies that provide the most expensive health insurance plans.

Democratic leaders have been pushing for an agreement on a compromise proposal in advance of President Obama's health care speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night.

Obama's address will be carried live on CNN and CNN.com/Live beginning at 8 p.m. ET.

Earlier Wednesday, another Democratic senator in the middle of Capitol Hill's delicate health care negotiations pushed back hard against the notion of a firm deadline for passing a bill.

"This idea that there is a drop-dead day or hour is ... absolutely counterproductive to doing something that is critically important, " Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, told reporters.

Conrad is one of the so-called Gang of Six, three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee trying to craft bipartisan health care legislation.

The Senate Finance Committee is the last of five congressional panels needed to approve health care legislation before the full Senate and House of Representatives can take up the topic. Three House committees already have approved a bill, along with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Meanwhile, top congressional Republicans on Wedneday reiterated their position that health care deliberations should start over from scratch.

"I think the American people have made it pretty clear that they don't really want another lecture" from Obama, said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "They want a new plan. ... It really is time to just stop [and] hit the reset button."