i got to know max baucus who was my colleague in the senate, and we both served on the senate finance committee which was a very heavy-duty committee, and we were both interested in a lot of the same things, particularly international trade. and so we got to know each other. we got to like each other uzbek max being a democrat. >> guest: max being a democrat, and he has a son named zeno. xena was a baby at this time and so he asked me because i'm an ordained clergyman to baptize zeno, which i did. now, i can imagine that in today's u.s. senate as i understand what's going on in washington, i just think it's a bit baffled all the time. if you get to know somebody on a personal basis, you can try at least to communicate and to work things out. >> host: the story about max baucus really resonated with me because i made one of my best friends in the senate on the other side of the aisle with ben nelson, and it was as a result of a codel to afghanistan. it's true when your many, many hours, your out of that furnace it is the senate education know somebody as a person. is a little harder to

but over in the senate, the senate finance committee and particular, max baucus, who is chairing theommittee at the time, put together what came to be called the gang of six. three republicans and three democrats that he handpicked. he chaired this little group with the idea, the hope, that some bipartisan legislation or reform legislation could be crafted and passed. it was a full's aaron from the beginning, obviously, but out of that, senator conrad, democrat of north dakota, proposed instead of the public option, congress should authorize funding to create these co-ops. i wrote at the time that it would be great if we had a world in which those co-ops could succeed, but it was just sheer folly to think -- and fantasy to think that could happen. it is because largely of what steffie said, they would have to to be with these very large for-profit insurance companies like the ones i used to work for. i know at the barriers to entry in any market in this country, what those barriers are. they are very, very high. unless you have incredible capitalization, they're just not going to suc