Senators and the Health Care Reform

As I've been reading and listening to the health care debates, I discovered recently that youtube has a lot of the debates between the Representatives and Senators on the health care issue. I don't think I can do any better than these people in putting into clear terms the issues involved in the current health care reform bills. I was especially happy to discover Senator Bernie Sanders' set of videos called Bernie Sanders Unfiltered. Since I am fairly liberal, the video links below are Senators mostly from a progressive point of view. One of the things that has annoyed me over the past few weeks has been the complaints of some conservative critics of the complexity of the current health care bill. If these conservative critics were truly interested in a simple health care system, they'd support a single payer health care system. I think a bill that tries to preserve the present private health insurance system while eliminating the right of insurance companies to reject those with pre-existing conditions, one that covers everyone while having cost containment measures, will always be complex. If you want a simpler plan, a single payer system is the best. If you don't want a single payer system, any alternative will be a lot more complex. I added Olympia Snowe to this list of Democrats because she seems to be the one Republican who seems to want to work with Democrats for a solution, rather than act as an obstacle. I listed the centrists and their reasons for wavering on the current bill. It gives some idea on the arguments that must be refuted to get the 60 votes needed to get this passed. A debate on the public option between Senators Schumer and Jon Kyle Senator Bernie Sanders and the Public Option Senators Schumer and Cronyn debate health care Russ Feingold and the Public Option Bernie Sanders explains an imperfect health care bill Harry Reid talks about health care Senator Barbara Mikulski and women's health care Democratic Senators talk about an amendment to protect Medicare benefits Barbara Boxer and insurance reform Senator Wyden and his free choice proposal Senator Wyden opening statement during the Senate Finance Committee's mark-up of the "America's Healthy Future Act." Senator Chris Dodd and his support of a public option Olympia Snowe and her comments in the Finance Committee Ben Nelson talks about his objections to the public option Joe Lieberman and his objections to the public option Susan Collins talks about health care reform