President Obama this morning continues his sell to Americans on why Democrats should use a procedure meant to pass fiscal legislation to allow them to get a health care overhaul through Congress on a bare majority vote, since Republicans (and a few Democrats) aren't going along.

"The insurance companies aren’t starting over," the president says. "I just met with some of them on Thursday and they couldn’t give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums – by as much as 60% in states like Illinois. If we do not act, they will continue to do this. They will continue to drop people’s coverage when they need it. They will continue to refuse coverage based on pre-existing conditions. These practices will continue."

The Republican response comes from Rep. Parker Griffith, R-Ala., a physician who until recently was a Democrat.

Griffith says, “I spent 30 years practicing medicine in North Alabama. The worst thing we could do is have the federal government decide what policies and what procedures would be done in hospitals or in physicians’ offices, what would be paid for, what would not be paid for. This will only cause premiums to rise and the quality of care to go down."