we are host: continue with our conversation on health care reform from -- with earl blumen hour, democrat from oregon. arlen to reference "the new york times." health care reforms moment arrives, again. talking about the convergence of politics and economics at this point, which the white house budget director peter orszag called a remarkable moment did the right, students of history realize they are only now entering the riskiest days when more details generate real opposition. to date, a fragile coalition of stakeholders have been attacked at the table. but it may not take much for their guiding principle of shared responsibility to fracture into shards of self interest. what are the prospects of health care reform this year? guest: i think there are better than what they have been in a generation. president obama, when he addressed the a and a held up a magazine i had given him the week before, "harper's magazine" october of 1960, talking about the crisis in american medicine. it has been with us a long time, but what is different now is that we do have a president who has campaigned o

windsor, connecticut, john mitchell, and our attorney general of the state of connecticut, richard blumen thall. the idea, when -- richard blumenthal. the idea, when we were looking at commodities and the market, we realized the more and closer we looked at who was regulating these agencies, it was somewhat a case of the foxes guarding the hen house. many have asked, and when they went home over the break and since the financial collapse on wall street, people have been astounded in trying to answer the question of how could it be that bernie may dauf was scamming thousands -- may doff was scamming -- ma doff was scamming thousands -- madoff was scamming thousands into giving up their money. where were the agencies, where were they when speculators were wreaking havoc on the oil markets? i can think of no sector where honesty, independence, and transparency are needed more right now than in our financial and commodity markets. yet the regulatory -- regulators of these markets have been athroud work with no oversight of what they are doing and whether they are fulfilling their mission to p