mike soraghan and ed epstein, is this health care debate democrat versus democrat? >> i said that the republicans role is to play spoiler. it indicates that there are no republicans that they can pick off any considerable number. the democratic differences are so great. and some meaningful tort why did it -- why it is hard to pass this bill. >> the republicans are out there as, not as naysayers, but their view is completely different than the democrats. the democrats say that they want a bipartisan approach, especially in the senate, where the 160 votes. i think it is not really practical because their views about the basic nature of the government's role in health care remains different than the democrats. the democrats have to cobble this together on their on. and it is the president's number one priority. how can they let him fail. they did this before under bill clinton. bill clinton wrote his own plan and it never got even to first base in congress. this is the furthest along that they had been in a national health-insurance system since truman proposed it. >>

. >> mike soraghan and ed epstein. >> thank you for having us. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> the health care bill will likely not seen in action soon in the senate. it is possible the house could consider a bill before leaving town for the summer recess. house democratic caucus chairman john morrison plans to hold a meeting tomorrow starting at 4:00 eastern -- john larsen plans to hold a meeting starting at 4:00 eastern. he said that the meeting will go as long as necessary to answer every question members have. >> how is c-span funded? >> publicly funded. >> donations, maybe. i have no idea. >> they get their funding for the taxes. >> federal funding. >> maybe, i don't know. >> how is c-span funded? america's cable companies created c-span as a public service, a private business initiative, no government mandate, no government money. >> "q&a" tonight. susan jacoby on the ongoing fascination on the trial of algar heiss. >> now, virginia governor and democratic n