If Congress does not pass a health-care bill with a public option, the credit (from others, the blame) will fall on the shoulders of one of America’s most powerful backroom dealers: Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat. 

A nondescript 67-year-old who has spent the majority of his life in Congress, Baucus is the Finance Committee chairman and the Senate gatekeeper for health-care and climate-change legislation, as well as pretty much any spending bill the Obama administration thrusts before Congress. Baucus categorically declared earlier this year that single-payer health care “is not going to work in this country.” Since then, he has

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