Expectations for today’s health summit could hardly be lower. Details of Obamacare Plan B are here and the WSJ is saying he’s got a Plan C:
His leading alternate approach would provide health insurance to perhaps 15 million Americans, about half what the comprehensive bill would cover, according to two people familiar with the planning.
It would do that by requiring insurance companies to allow people up to 26 years old to stay on their parents’ health plans, and by modestly expanding two federal-state health programs, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, one person said. The cost to the federal government would be about one-fourth the price tag for the broader effort, which the White House has said would cost about $950 billion over 10 years.
While Obama’s promise was to do it live on C-SPAN, today’s event can also be seen live on YouTube and all over the ‘net:
Whitehouse.gov will once again squarely compete with news websites and live streaming start-ups by carrying the entire event live on its own site as well as through its Facebook application.
CSPAN.org owes the Health Care Summit a lot — after all, the network has gotten lots of plugs from Obama himself, who vowed to show the whole thing on CSPAN ever since he first proposed the summit. CSPAN is giving back by streaming the entire event on its web site.
Foxnews.com has vowed to also stream the entire event live.
MSNBC won’t carry the event in its entirety on TV; after all, it’s still Olympics. However, the network has announced that it will stream the whole summit on its website.
CNN Live will carry the Health Care Summit as well, and it may even bring back the Facebook integration we all learned to love during the 2008 election cycle.