After initially obstructing Democratic efforts to compromise on major health care reform legislation, Republicans will now have until October 15th to agree to a bipartisan compromise.

Today on a conference call with reporters, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) reiterated that the Democratic leadership wants 70 to 75 votes in Senate for health reform. Sens. “Baucus and Kennedy have no desire to actually have to use reconciliation whatsoever… we all understand if it gets down to that kind of acrimonious debate, the country will lose… if this breaks down we don’t want to lose the opportunity to pass health reform,” Dodd said.

In fact, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has also penned a letter to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) extending Republicans “a seat…at the table”:

In order for this bipartisan process to take root, Republicans must demonstrate a sincere interest in legislating. Rather than just saying no, you must be willing to offer concrete and constructive proposals. We cannot afford more of the obstructionist tactics that have denied or delayed Congress’ efforts to address so many of the critical challenges facing the nation...I hope your conference will recognize that this issue is too important to be manipulated for political purposes. This is a seat for you at the table; we hope you take it.

So far, Republicans have shown only limited willingness to cooperate on the issue. McConnell, for instance, had penned a letter to Obama in the lead up to the White House Health Forum effectively taking the public health plan off of the table and Republicans have promised to release a non-starter alternative to Obama’s proposal: Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) widely discredited approach to reforming the health system.

As Families USA President Ron Pollack explained during an earlier interview with ThinkProgress, “the first attempt will be made to try to do this in a bipartisan fashion. But it takes two to tango and we saw with the economic recovery legislation, we didn’t have two folks tangoing. You had one doing a tango and the other doing a break dance and so that didn’t quite work.” Now, both parties can try and dance to this.

Conservatives For Patients rights, the Swift Boat Health Smear Group headed by disgraced health executive Rick Scott, has released a new ad, and POLITICO, in turn, has penned another blog post presenting the advertisement.

In what can best be described as a marriage of Betsy McCaughey (the government intends to control what’s in your medicine cabinet!) and Sally Pipes (Canadian health care is coming!), the ad warns that the Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research was modeled “after the national board that controls Britain’s health system” to institute “government control over your health care choices.” Two doctors testify to the horrors of medicine in Great Britain and Canada, respectively:

SCOTT: “Deep inside the stimulus bill, Congress buried an innocent sounding board: the Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research. It’s not so innocent – it’s the first step in government control over your health care choices. This federal council is modeled after the national board that control’s Britain’s health system. Listen to Britain’s Dr. Karol Sikora about what happens to patients once the government takes over.”

DR. SIKORA (GB): “They’ll lose their own choice, completely…lose control of their own destiny within the medical system.” [...]

DR. DAY (Canada) “Patients are languishing and suffering on wait lists, our own Supreme Court of Canada has stated that patients are actually dying as they wait for care…

Watch it:

Scared yet? Well, you shouldn’t be. As Media Matters Action Network explains here, and I’ve written here, here, and here, comparative effectiveness research will ensure that doctors and patients have access to information about treatment effectiveness without the filter of a drug industry representative. As Newt Gingrich explains, “today, only about 10 percent of all health care is based on evidence. That means that 90 percent of the care we receive is, basically, informed opinion. We need a rigorous, clear system to measure the costs, benefits and value of a given procedure, technology or drug.”

Most notably, Obama has rejected a British/Canadian-like single-payer reform and most policy makers are looking for a “uniquely American solution” that preserves the employer-sponsored system and creates a hybrid public-private partnership. In other words, American reforms would look a bit like the Swiss health system in which the government “leaves the provision of health care and health insurance in private hands” but creates a marketplace within which insurers can compete on price, and not avoid insuring the sickest patients.

But if we put the ad’s false comparison aside, CPR do raise two more important questions: 1) do the British and Canadian systems deliver inferior care, and 2) do these systems really ration care and restrict patient choice? Read more