“I suspect that if the Democrats and the administration were willing to start over and then adopt John Boehner’s bill we’d get a whole bunch of Republican votes.” Well, that’s true. “The concern colleagues…on the Democratic side have is after a year and a half, or five decades, they think starting over means not doing much or doing the proposal John Boehner and other Republicans find acceptable…”

“I’ve put on the table some things that I’ve said I’d work on.” Not sure what that means.

“I’d like the Republicans to do a little soul searching and see if there’s something that you’d embrace dealing with 30 million uninsured people and pre-existing conditions…” The non-Democratic proposals attempt to change the way health care is delivered, and in that way would deal with these matters in that fashion, as he knows.

“Politically speaking there may not be a reason for Republicans not to do anything…most Republican voters are opposed to this bill and might be opposed to any compromise we could craft.” God forbid they should be represented in this debate!

“But I thought it was worthwhile to make this effort….If we saw movement — signficant movement, not just gestures — you wouldn’t need to start over because everybody knows what the issues are…” This is exactly the point; the Democratic bills are the ones that matter, not any Republican proposals.

“We cannot have another year-long debate about this…Is there enough serious effort so that in a month’s time, or six weeks time, we can make a deal or we’ll have to go forward….That’s what elections are for.” And so, at the end, Obama threatens Republicans with passage of the bill through the “reconciliation” process that will only require 51 Senate votes rather than 60. Of course, this doesn’t take into account the fact that the House bill passed by only 5 votes and we don’t know yet whether Nancy Pelosi could command a majority for final passage for this bill when many prognosticators are looking at Democratic losses in the House of a minimum of 35-40 seats and a maximum of 75-80, more than Republicans lost after Watergate…