i think ron wyden has good ideas. one day i wondered if ron wyden wouldn't be the compromise product at the end. we parted ways. the who is to say what will happen in the future. >> i suspect you and i are on the same page on a lot of different things. if you like ron wyden and paul ryan and you like freedom and choice and you like a free market. congressman, thank you. >> i want the doctor to be in charge of the patient. >> i wouldn't mind that myself as a patient. thank you so much. i do want to welcome the democrat from california. co-chair of the progressive caucus. in terms of distance this bill goes, before we get into how you would amend it to improve, what is your view of the events as they stand this afternoon? >> big step forward, dylan. no way can we amend something if we don't have a base bill to amend in the first place. i'm very pleased with the historic vote yesterday. >> what's at the top of your list of amendments? >> top of my list will be to -- i will introduce a robust public option. on the very da

he made the audacious attempt of trying to come up with a bipartisan health care bill with ron wyden,engers, might not even make it on the primary ballot the way utah's rules were -- >> i'm talking the general election. >> reporter: -- and they're going after him simply because it's an easy scalp to get. they want to send a message to the party. so if you're another republican and you see bob bennett, this isn't a charlie crist or arlen specter situation. this is bob bennett, a guy who worked in the nixon administration. if you're saying that he can't get a pass from the conservative grass roots, then you have to go on -- you can't publicly sort of go anywhere but where they're going. >> i want to go back, though. donny, you have said -- donny deutsche has said now for the past two blocks that this is what the american people want. the american people are tired of this. the american people are tired of that. i never assume to know what the american people want or what they're tired of, but i do look at polls. and a new cbs poll shows that what you're saying, donny, is just not correct

that was fronted by ron wyden. didn't happen.e, let them buy health care themselves opposed to the corporate tax benefit. whether it was from the left or the right, the leadership on both sides of the aisle refused to engage reform on that level. why do you think that was? >> this seemed to be truly a one-party effort, really didn't want a lot of input from others. the only bipartisanship was the opposition with democrats voting against it. >> but there's such an easy case to improve this bill because of the obvious accommodations. i would think as an opposition party or even internal opposition, it's so easy to go to the people and say listen, this is great. they're expanding coverage but doing it by accommodating special interests. i can expand coverage and blast those accommodations. the cynic in me says all the politicians are so dependent on accommodating special interests whether you're a republican or a democrat that no one honestly has the guts or the capacity to go into the lion's den and effect the reform most efficient

president, there was a bill -- there was a bill in the senate that ron wyden and bennett worked on together. it had some flaws t would have been an interesting startinstartingplace, though. that bill caused medicaid recipients to have the same kind of health care that you and i have. what we've done in this bill instead of that, instead of reforming, instead of focusing on cost, we're going to put half of the new recipients in a program that none of us -- none of us -- would want to be in. and we're calling that "health care reform." so, mr. president, i do plan later to offer an amendment to deal with this issue of unfunded mandates. i think it is wrong for us as a country to have people in federal office that push their desires off on people and then cause them to pick up the tab. i was a mayor, i was a commissioner of finance. you served in the general assembly. senator gregg served as a governor. we know that's wrong. i don't know why we're doing it. and i plan to offer an amendment to correct it. mr. president, i thank you for the time, and i notice the absenceesf qrum. the presiding o