For the first time in the year long debate over health care reform, President Obama unveiled his own bill and posted it to the White House web site. It's clearly based on the Senate's bill, with fixes required by the the House and a few Republican-sponsored amendments.
Marc Ambinder has the political highlights: "There's plenty in this bill for Democrats to like. But there's no public option. It'll be easier to get unions on board because the excise tax will be delayed and watered down a bit; the bill delays implementation of several provisions, which will annoy Democrats; it spends quite a bit of time focusing on trying to rid Medicare of waste, fraud and abuse. There's no nod to tort reform, so far as I can see."
As Greg Sargent notes, White House advisers also made it clear this morning that if Republicans filibuster the bill, Democrats will move forward on their own and pass it via reconciliation.
This assertion "ups the stakes" in advance of this week's health care summit "by essentially daring Republicans to try to block reform."
Politico notes White House officials "have already begun urging Republicans to post
their bills on line as well -- a clever tactic by the White House,
because Republicans ideas for reform were spread across several pieces
of legislation, or fell far short of the Democrats' goal of insuring 31
million uninsured Americans. The main House Republican proposal, for
instance, would only cover 3 million more Americans."
