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

This is part two, which should be focussed on insurance reform. . . part one’s liveblog can be found here.

12:11 – Republican Charles Boustany says the we all agree that we need insurance reform the question is how to do it. Boustany say exchanges will be overly restrictive. Also wants big health saving accounts. He says Republican solution to pre-existing conditions is risk pools and re-insurance. “This is not the answer”

12:19 – Democrat George Miller says there is some agreement on insurance reforms. Points out a Democrat believe preventive care should not have co-pays. Says the real failing of the Republican alternative is that there is no banning deny because of pre-existing condition. With all his health problems Miller says he he would be dead in today’s market. Calls the high risk pool a trap you can’t get out of.

12:25 – Republican John McCain decides to attack the process. He points out that Obama failed to live up to his promise of putting negotiations on C-Span and let the bill get filled with back room deals. One highlights is the Medicare Advantage curve out of Florida seniors.

McCain goes straight after the PhRMA deal. (possibly the most corrupt part of the entire health care bill and the negotiations.) He is angry that drug re-importation he supported and Obama claimed to support was kept out as part off a buy off for the PhRMA lobby.

12:30 – Obama tells McCain that the campaign is over. (Is that meant to be the justication for breaking many of his campaign promise on health care?)

12:33 – HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says an insurance commissioner she ran a high risk pool in Kansas. She says they simply don’t work very well and are very expensive.

12:38 – Republican Eric Cantor claims his problem is that the bill would have the government define a minimum benefit requirement for insurance. To find agreement Democrats need to set this whole bill aside.

12:44 – Obama “we could probably set up a system were food is cheaper if we eliminated meat inspectors.” In every aspect of our lives we makes some consumer protections. Obama points out Republicans have agreed to some insurance regulation so he wants them to talk about specifically what regulations.

Obama claims the two ways to deal with pre-existing conditions is exchange pooling and high risk pool. (Not true. It is called single payer. It is cheaper, better, used all over the world.)

12:50 – Cantor we can not afford this. In “a perfect world everyone can have everything they want.” (Actually most first world countries give everyone health care and it cost about 40% less than American health care.)

12:53 – Democrat Louise Slaughter says pre-existing condition most go. Woman pay over 40% more for health care than man. She rips Paul Ryan’s terrible plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

12:57 – They break until 1:45 so House members can vote and lunch.