On the Republican side, ranking members of the House Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means Committees sent a public letter to Speaker Pelosi urging open and fully bipartisan negotiations, in light of the C-Span request: "... we strongly believe the final health care legislation should be posted online for at least 72 hours before it is brought to a vote, and that all Members should have that much time to review scores from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation. This kind of transparency would help prevent the sweetheart deals so prominent in the Senate bill from being cut behind closed doors at the expense of the American taxpayer."

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) held a press briefing (DM 11245) with other House members after a Tuesday Democratic leadership meeting. "We are very pleased that our conversations continue with our counterparts in the Senate - at the leadership level, at the committee level, and at the staff level - and are optimistic that there is much that we have in common in both of our bills," Pelosi stated, "and that we will resolve or reconcile this legislation in a way that is a triple-A-rating: affordability for the middle class, accountability for the insurance companies, and accessibility to many more people in our country to quality, affordable health care."


In response to the questions regarding the C-Span letter, Assistant to the Speaker Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) commented, "Let me just point out first that the health care debate in this piece of legislation has been subjected to an unprecedented degree of public scrutiny and input. The original bill was put on the Internet for the public to inspect. You then had a summer where you had thousands of hearings around the country and town meetings and both town hall meetings where people were showing up as well as telephone town hall meetings. You had a whole series of hearings. In fact, I think it is important to note that there were over 100 hearings held by the chairmen of the three committees who are here with us today - heard from 181 witnesses, 83 hours of markup, the list goes on.

So we will continue to have that kind of open process as we go through this next phase. There will obviously be discussions between members of the House and Senate, but we will continue to keep the American people informed as we have in the earlier stages."

In response to a reporter's comment that another Democratic congressman said bypassing conference committee was an "assault to democracy," Pelosi responded, "Well, I don't know who you are talking about, but what I will say [is] that there has never been a more open process for any legislation, and anyone who serves here has experienced. As Mr. Van Hollen said, and as you know, tens of thousands of people participated in our town meetings, over 100 witnesses in our bipartisan hearings that were held, and the list goes on. I'm not going to repeat what he has said.

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