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Democrats, Republicans to address health care

Meanwhile, advocacy groups are organizing town halls, marches and roundtables. Health Care for America Now, a liberal advocacy group, is running a 60-second TV ad in Maine targeting Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who are considered swing votes.

Nancy-Ann DeParle battles old, new critics

The leaked storyboards came just days after the president of the American Hospital Association said the White House misrepresented how much in savings six major healthcare organizations had agreed to find. On Friday, liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote about both episodes under the headline “Blue Double Cross.”

Jacki Schechner, a spokeswoman for Health Care for America Now, a coalition of progressive groups pushing for a public plan, said the insurance industry is not going to back off from its opposition, because it stands to lose too much money.

“They got their hand caught in the cookie jar, and now they’re going to eat carrots for a little while but continue to buy cookies. I think you can’t trust them one bit. This was well on its way to being produced, and they caught got,” she said of the videos. “They made it very clear that they oppose giving everybody a choice of a public health insurance plan.”