President Obama called for a rare meeting with lawmakers as part of a last effort to revive his health care priority.  The debate lasted all day and there wasn’t a resolution but voices were heard.  Obama gave his personal experiences with individual health insurance, including his mother’s battle with cancer.  He appealed to the fact that the health care system is not getting better, but only worse.

The Republicans main argument was that the existing reform bills didn’t do anything to lower costs.  The bills are estimated to cost 1 trillion dollars over the next decade.  The Democrats pointed out that it is going to be costly initially to extend coverage to nearly 30 million uninsured Americans.  Republicans fear a government system taking over a mostly private sector.

There was agreement that there are fundamental differences between the two parties that are causing the major rift.  The Democrats are still hoping to revive the comprehensive bills that have passed the House and Senate but Republicans are clear that they do not do comprehensive very well.  The debate continues even longer.  This information was obtained from the article “Obama and Republicans Haggle in Last-Gasp Health Summit” found on earthtimes.org.