Not much was accomplished legislatively during the first day of the Senate Finance Committee’s formal work on a health care reform bill on Tuesday, September 22. But by the late afternoon, the political fault lines were clear.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana and chairman of the panel, really has only one hope for securing a Republican vote. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, seemed to have an open mind about the $774 billion bill. Keeping Snowe on board, however, might require patience from Democrats who are champing at the bit to get to the legislating—or voting—on health care reform.

Snowe made clear in her opening statement that one of her priorities is ensuring that the measure will not increase the burgeoning federal deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the original Baucus bill, introduced on September 16, would reduce the deficit by $49 billion over 10 years.

But during the past week, Baucus has modified his original “mark” to accommodate concerns from his Democratic colleagues. The bill doesn’t include a government-run public insurance option or an employer mandate—two policies that congressional liberals cherish. Some Democratic senators worry that the Baucus bill would impose too high a premium burden on middle-income individuals and families.

The chairman revised the underlying legislation to increase the health care tax credit for purchasing coverage on a national health insurance exchange; lowered the “affordability” test for employer-sponsored insurance to 10 percent of an employee’s income from 13 percent; reduced the penalty imposed on people who don’t buy health insurance; and increased the threshold for the excise tax on high-cost insurance plans.

Baucus intends to “pay” for these changes out of the bill’s $49 billion surplus. But they are just the beginning of the revisions to the bill. Over the next few days, the committee has to wade through more than 500 amendments.

The final product may have a different price tag, if not a completely different look, from the original. Snowe wants to know exactly what Congress is paying for before voting the bill out of the committee.

“I hope we will have the opportunity to review the final mark and revised CBO estimates on the bill as amended—before we move to any final vote,” she said. “We simply cannot address one-sixth of our economy, and a matter of such personal and financial significance to every American, on a legislative fast track.”

President Barack Obama also has the deficit on his mind. In his September 9 address to Congress, he guaranteed that the final health care reform effort will not add a “dime” to the federal deficit.

But Obama and Democratic leaders—as well as Baucus—are eager to get to a vote by the full Senate. That can only occur after the Finance panel approves its bill and the measure is merged with a bill approved over the summer by the Senate health committee. Baucus wants to move the process along by finishing the Finance markup this week.

The timeline is causing Republicans other than Snowe to throw in the towel. Snowe and Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, were members of the “Gang of Six” who had been negotiating the bill with Baucus for months.

But Grassley is not satisfied with the outcome so far.

“That artificial deadline pushed us aside and put an end to that bipartisan work before it could produce a bipartisan bill,” he said. “It seems that the White House and the leadership were never really going to give it time to do it right.”

That timetable for the Finance bill could be slowed, however, by the CBO. Director Douglas Elmendorf testified at the September 22 markup that the agency requires at least several days, perhaps as much as two weeks, to determine the effect of hundreds of amendments on the cost of the bill.

That answer didn’t sit well with Baucus, who displays equanimity even in tense circumstance. But Elmendorf’s answers caused him to wince, even growl slightly.

“We’ll figure a way out of this box,” Baucus said.

But staying inside the box may be the only way to placate Snowe. So far in Obama’s “post-partisan” Washington, bipartisanship means getting Democrats and Snowe to back a bill. Democrats may have to wait for her to get the answer she wants about the cost of the health care bill.