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Hello, Everyone's talking about Obama's upcoming TV summit with the GOP on health care. I'm sure it will be less tasty and less filling than last summer's beer summit. Don't worry, though, the summit is just a diversion while Democratic leaders wheel and deal furiously to pass a bill on their own. This week's Pulse features: -Art Levine in Working In These Times -Monica Potts in TAPPED -Kevin Drum in Mother Jones -Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! with Dr. Gabor Mate -Todd A. Heywood in the Michigan Messenger If you can't post the blog, please tweet about it! Here's a sample: [Weekly Pulse] Obama stalls for time with health care summit: http://bit.ly/cFxbtj #hcr #p2 The URL is here: http://bit.ly/cFxbtj The full text is also available as a Google Doc: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dc3c66v5_114gw27r7f4 Full text follows below: <pWeekly Pulse: Obama Stalls for Time with Health Care Summit</p<pBy Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger</p <pPresident Barack Obama's February 25 health care summit, where he will appear <a href= http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/09/obama.health.care/ on TV</a with Republican leaders, has been hailed and assailed as yet another gesture towards bipartisanship. But the summit is really a delaying tactic. It's a decoy, something shiny to keep the chattering classes entertained while Congressional Democrats wheel and deal furiously behind the scenes.</p <pAt this point, there are two ways forward, and neither of them require Republican support. The first option is for the House to pass the Senate health care bill as written but with the understanding that the Senate will later fix certain contentious parts of the bill through reconciliation. The second option is for the Senate to pass the reconciliation fix first and the House to pass the bill later.</p <p<strongSomeone has to go first</strong</p <pArt Levine of Working In These Times diagnoses a severe case of <a href= http://bit.ly/dlTkl5 paralysis on the left</a: Nancy Pelosi is willing to entertain the first option, but labor leaders like Rich Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, want the Senate to go first because they don't trust the Senate to fix the bill later. Nobody wants to go first, but somebody has to. If neither the House nor the Senate takes the initiative, reform will fail by default and Americans will continue to suffer.</p <pIf the Democrats are going to attempt reconciliation, they need a plan to steer the legislation through the Senate. While everyone else is talking about the summit, procedural experts are probably huddling with leadership, nailing down the details.</p <p<strongObama's 'Waterloo'</strong</p <pEveryone knows that Obama isn't going to pick up any Republican votes, summit or no summit. The House bill got 1 Republican vote, the Senate bill got 0. Quite simply, Republicans want health care reform to fail. No Republican president since Richard Nixon has attempted comprehensive health care reform. In opposition, Republicans have been intractably opposed reform because they're afraid the Democrats will take credit for it. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) famously said he wanted break Obama by making health reform the president's <a href= http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Health_reform_foes_plan_O... Waterloo</a. </p <p<strongHealth care reform in the media</strong</p <pMeanwhile, as <a href= http://bit.ly/bGKWT6 Monica Potts notes in TAPPED</a, the media seems to be bending over backwards to treat the Republican's pro forma suggestions as serious proposals for reform, even though the Congressional Budget Office has already analyzed the plan and determined that it will leave millions uninsured without lowering costs. The health care bills as written are already chock full of Republican proposals, like eliminating the public option, easing restrictions on buying insurance across state lines, allowing people to band together in insurance-purchasing coops.</p <pKevin Drum of <emMother Jones</em worries that the upcoming summit will just give the Republicans more <a href= http://bit.ly/bYGG66 free airtime</a to spread falsehoods about government controlled health care. </p <p<strongVoices of the uninsured</strong</p <pThis week, <emThe Nation</em is publishing the stories of some of the millions of <a href= http://bit.ly/d7qM2a uninsured and underinsured</a Americans: An uninsured woman who was diagnosed with throat cancer last month; a father with a severely disabled son who is about to hit is $5 million lifetime insurance benefit cap; a single mom on the verge of medical bankruptcy; and many others.</p <p<strongIn other news</strong</p <p<a href= http://bit.ly/9w0eye Dr. Gabor Mat </a, the official physician of Canada's only supervised drug injection site, talks about the science of addiction and his new book with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!.</p <pTodd A. Heywood reports in the Michigan Messenger that American Family Association of Michigan is doubling down in the dying days of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Not only do they want to ban gays from the military, they want to <a href= http://michiganmessenger.com/34516/family-group-says-it-wants-homosex... re-criminalize homosexuality</a.</p <p<emThis post features _link_s to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by <a href= http://www.themediaconsortium.org/our-members members</a of <a href= http://www.themediaconsortium.org/ The Media Consortium</a. It is free to reprint. Visit the <a href= http://www.themediaconsortium.org/issues/healthcare Pulse</a for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on <a href= http://www.twitter.com/pulsetmc Twitter</a. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out <a href= http://www.themediaconsortium.org/issues/economy/ The Audit</a, <a href= http://www.themediaconsortium.org/issues/sustain The Mulch</a, and <a href= http://www.themediaconsortium.org/issues/immigration The Diaspora</a. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.</em</p