So what happened today at the big health-care summit? Democrats went to great lengths to express the reasonable aspects of their health insurance reform bill in the face of unified Republican derision to any discussion of reform that didn't have the word "tort" appended to the beginning of it (watch Sen. Dick Durbin dismantle the tort reform myth in the video posted below - fascinating). The health care reform proposal that has emerged from the Obama Administration is actually quite a moderate bill (which includes many individually popular reforms within it) but you sure wouldn't know it from the Republican responses to the proposal. To sum up in a few words, the Republicans demanded that the Democrats start over with a "clean sheet of paper" (code for "adopt Republican ideas or else") and that they reduce the length of the bill from its current circa 2,500-page length. When President Obama released a condensed 11-page outline bill earlier this week, however, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called that bill "too short." Republicans also claimed that individuals will be forced to pay higher premiums under the reform bill (the Congressional Budget Office flatly disagrees with this argument.) Obama just can't win, it seems.
So what's next, given that the philosophical differences that have been apparent for months between the parties are still clear as day after the summit? Well it appears that Democrats are gearing up to pass the bill with a majority vote (reconciliation is the technical term) without Republican support of any sort. I say great, let's put this behind us and get on to finding ways to create jobs in this country again.
Here's a compilation of the day's highlights (since I presume nobody had the time to watch all 7.5 hours):
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