Feb 26 2010
As the health summit opened this morning, President Obama called the overhaul "absolutely critical," while Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said "We ought to start over,"
The Wall Street Journal reports. Alexander also urged Democrats not to use budget reconciliation rules to advance a measure through the Senate without GOP support. "The six-hour gathering will feature discussions on four themes: controlling health-care costs, reforming the insurance market, reducing the deficit and expanding insurance coverage. The session, however, isn't expected to produce any breakthroughs on an issue that sharply divides Democrats and Republicans" (Pulizzi and Meckler, 2/25).
The Washington Post: "'We all know this is urgent,' Obama told the gathering. But unfortunately, he said, despite all the hearings and negotiations that have taken place over the past year, 'this became a very ideological battle; it became a very partisan battle, and I think politics ended up trumping practical common sense.'" Indeed, Alexander, the opening Republican speaker called to "change the direction" of the overhaul and block the bills now in play in favor of a more slender reform effort (Branigin, 2/25).
The Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, "I think it's nearly impossible to imagine a scenario under which we could reach an agreement … cause we don't think we ought to pass a 2,700-page bill that seeks to restructure one-sixth of our economy," according to
NPR (2/25).
 This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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