Representative Anthony Weiner started a liveblog today and will be watching this with us and offer his own commentary.
This is liveblog diary number 3
Representative Anthony Weiner started a liveblog today and will be watching this with us and offer his own commentary.
This is the third liveblog, the first by Mr Weiner is here
The second by Kimconnor is here
We will need more people to continue these, so volunteer in comments please.
Here is what Rep. Weiner wrote in his first diary:
Republicans are wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. That's what I said yesterday on the House floor.
Today is their big day to prove me wrong, but I'm getting ready for reruns
of the worst show in town.
Republicans will spend today's health care summit ranting and raving. We'll
make concessions, but in the end we won't win a single Republican vote.
It's no surprise that the list of participants for today's bipartisan health
care summit didn't include my name or any other advocate for single-payer
health care.
Kimconnor's diary
*
Representative Wiener continued:
It's too bad we won't get to hear Republicans squeal like they did yesterday
when they asked me to take my comment back.
But I still have a TV and a laptop. Just because we won't be in the room,
doesn't mean that those of us who want real health care reform can't make
our voices heard.
I've said it before: Democrats can't keep negotiating with ourselves while
getting nothing in return.
The President supports the public option. Majorities of both the House and
the Senate support the public option. And a whopping majority of the
American people supports the public option.
That's what we should be doing, and that's the only way we're going to end
up with a plan that provides real competition to insurance companies and
reduces soaring premiums.
But I'm not going to stop fighting and neither can you. I'll be right here
today liveblogging. And don't worry, I'll be sure to call out Republicans
every time they sell out the American people to protect the insurance
industry.
I'll be updating regularly, so come back often.
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10:21 AM
This notion of a lot of agreement overlooks the fact that there is stark disagreement on one thing - whether protecting the insurance industry should be a primary goal of our policy.
My GOP friends say yes. Democrats believe we need to put consumers first. Rachel Maddow explained this well last night. The health insurance industry has a different goal than we policy makers have.
10:11 AM
Some things to watch out for this morning at the health care summit:
Will anyone actually explain the status of the public option?
We know the President supports it. We know that the Democrats at the table overwhelmingly support it. We know that the American people support it. And we know that the House of Representatives already voted for it.
So what's the problem?
At least in the game of Clue we find out who did the crime at the end. Before we write the obituary on the public option, I hope somebody explains.
So far the Republicans have been attempting to divert attention and using delaying tactics. those of us watching MSNBC have been treated to lame comments by foolish commentators.
11;30 EST Baucus interpreted by David Schuster.