Bickering mars US health summit
FINANCIAL TIMES:
Any hopes for reaching cross-party agreement at President Barack Obama’s healthcare summit on Thursday were soon dashed, when Republicans and Democrats quickly descended into bickering over whether reform would raise health insurance premiums.
Democratic and Republican leaders sat down with the president on Thursday morning for a much-hyped bipartisan summit, which analysts said would be more about politics than policy.
Mr Obama, making a new push to overhaul the $2,500bn health care system, tried to highlight the areas of reform on which both parties can agree at the start of the summit…
Republican Lamar Alexander from Tennessee, a senator with a track record of bipartisan voting, swiftly put paid to hopes for progress when he delivered the Republicans’ opening remarks by calling for the healthcare reform process to be scrapped…
Democrats are warming to the idea of using the “reconciliation” process, which would allow them to pass the legislation in the upper chamber with only a simple majority of 51 votes but which is supposed to be used only for budget-related bills.
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