Welcome to “Battle at the Blair House” the bipartisan health care summit taking place today between 10:00am and 4:00pm. You can watch it live on C-Span 3 here or via the embedded video.

The meeting will be divided into four segments:

Controlling costs – introduced by the President

Insurance reforms – introduced by Secretary Sebelius

Reducing the deficit – introduced by the Vice President

Expanding coverage – introduced by the President

9:53 – Most of the attendees are standing around waiting for the meeting to officially start in a few minutes.

10:04 – President Obama arrives and goes around the room shaking hands and slapping shoulders. Seems most people get the double shoulder slap handshake combo.

10:07 – Obama’s opening remarks. Interesting, starts by talking about jobs. Evenat the bipartisan health care summit it is jobs first and foremost.

He talks about the letters he receives from people who have trouble with their health care. Focusing on the problems with the status quo and how things are only getting worse. Claiming premiums will double over the next decade.

Obama make the point to say he has looked at all the Republican ideas and noticed that there is overlap. Stress how his plan works with the existing private health care system (Am I not wrong or have Democrats spent all year talking about how broken/evil the current private health care system is?)

Obama says he wants to bridge the gaps but acknowledges the differences are to great and differences can’t be bridged. I think this is the most direct statement in support of reconciliation from Obama all year.

10:21 – Lamar Alexander delivers the opening statement for Republicans. Says the American people oppose the Senate bill. Asks Obama to start over and go step by step to bring down cost. (Expect this to be the Republican theme. Amazingly Alexander was able to say Republicans want Obama to succeed without breaking out laughing.)

Alexander focus on the billions in new taxes, the mandates on businesses and individuals, the “unfunded” state mandate for Medicaid, and the deals that don’t treat people evenly across the country. Points out Republicans simply don’t believe you can do comprehensive bills. It must be step by step.

10:30 – Alexander request that Democrats renounce the idea of using “reconciliation.” He claims it has never been used for anything like this. Reminds Obama that opposed the “nuclear option” for judges in 2005.

10:36 – Nancy Pelosi – Starts by pointing out the overwhelming bipartisan vote for lifting the anti-trust exemption for health insurance companies. Points out that American don’t have time for us to start over with health care (funny given that the Senate bill does not really help almost anyone until 2014). Pelosi says that this health care bill is about jobs.

10:44 – Harry Reid starts by telling a story about a small businessman from Nevada. A story about a man who’s baby was born with a cleft palate and his insurance denied coverage because it was a “pre-existing condition.” Reid points out the problem for senators in donut hole.

Reid, “reconciliation has been used 21 times.” Also points out the over hundred Republican amendments in the health care bill.

10:53 – Obama points out that many of the “steps” Republicans want are already in the bill. Says this meeting is to talk about substance and not process. Repeatedly stress that there might be “too big of a gulf” and that bipartisanship might not be possible.

Obama and Alexander get into a tough exchange over the CBO report on the increase of cost of insurance premiums in the individual market. Obama decided to tell a bald face lie claiming that they have tried to adopt every idea from health care economists to reduce cost. (It is called public option, Medicare buy-in, drug re-importation, Medicare drug price negotiation, quicker pathway for biosimilars, etc…)

11:02 – Alexander says he believe Obama is wrong but they should move on. Obama says he is pretty certain he is not wrong.

11:04 – Republican Tom Coburn says we are involved in “bad medicine.” Claims one in every three dollars spent on health care is wasted. Coburn claims the government is the problem because the government hands over 50% of health care cost. (Does not state Medicare is roughly 25%-30% cheaper at covering people than private insurance. Of course that is the whole argument for the public option.)

Coburn says we need to go after the waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare ( This is after Republicans spent weeks on the Senate floor attack the provision in the bill that eliminate waste, fraud, abuse in Medicare as “cuts to Medicare.”)

11:13 – Steny Hoyer – Says Americans are hoping that we are talking about them and not about us. (a good message) Hoyer goes personal talking about individuals in his district hurt by the current health care system. Says the exchanges which are open transparent markets should bring down cost. (Data from Federal employee health program’s exchange says otherwise) Hoyer says many in his caucus thought that the public option was a good idea to increase competition.

11:22 – Obama calls out the Republicans on the issue of the exchanges. He ask them to explain why they object to the idea.

11:24 – John Kline says Republicans have supported for years the idea of small business banding together in health associations.

11:26 – Max Baucus says that the gaps that need to bridge are not that great (Baucus’s bill is extreme industry friendly and very conservative reform. It is basically a Republican bill if Republicans had any interest in actually creating a bill.) Baucus goes point by point to show how almost all of the “Republican ideas” are already in the bill in some form or another. Claims that the exchanges are a Republican idea.

11:32 – Republican Dave Camp wants surprise!!! “tort reform.” He does not like the restrictions on HSA and FSA’s. He is also unable with the new super MedPAC board. (I do agree it is an overstep of the rights of the legislature. They need to start writing good bills instead of asking commissions to do their jobs for them.)

11:37 – Democrat Rob Andrews says there is some agreement between Republican and Democrats. He says the difference between associations and exchanges is mostly semantics. Says the one problem is that associations remove consumer protections and that we need a new federal minimum.

11:41 – Paul Ryan is saying Republicans don’t want people to sit in Washington righting insurance rules. Claims by mandating minimum coverage you increase cost. (Interesting countries with private insurance systems with very standardized defined coverage packages have much lower cost.)

11:45 – Obama tells a personal story about how the car insurance he bought when he was young turned out not to really be insurance at all. This is not a government take over of health care. There is just a baseline minimum requirements. (too bad the bill Obama pushes relies on states to enforce the minimum requirements and they have tended to fail miserably at that job so far.)

11:49 – Democrat Chuck Schumer rips on the Republicans for attacking Democratic attempts to end waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare.

11:51 – Republican John Kyl says the difference are too great. “We do not agree.” Kyl is furious that the government would mandate insurance companies cover some health conditions when people get sick.

11:57 – Obama makes the point that average premiums would increase because people would buy better insurance. Notices that no Republican has pushed to remove the minimum benefit in the exchange where members of Congress get insurance.

Does a great job of explain the Republican version of selling insurance across state lines is a race to the bottom. Points out Democrats fully support it as long as there is some national minimum base line set by Congress.

12:02 – Democrat James Clyburn points out that in some places 31% of people who show up in emergency rooms are there not for emergencies but for primary care. This includes both the uninsured but a lot of under insured.

Move over the part 2 of the liveblog