On Tuesday, the Senate and House convened for a pro forma session (one in which no formal business is conducted) to begin efforts to synthesize the House and Senate health care reform bills, H.R. 3962 and H.R. 3590 respectively.

The week's actions by Congress and the Administration include President Obama meeting with Congressional Democrats on Tuesday to discuss moving forward on combining the two health care bills. National Public Radio reports that thus far, the congressional members Obama spoke with have agreed on informal negotiations, as formal procedures might invoke more time-consuming cloture votes.

Prior to the President's meeting with the Democrats, Presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs commented regarding informal negotiations: "I think the President is anxious to get the differences worked out and get a bill to both houses and passed out of them. I think you can go back and look through the past many years and see where situations -- where they work out the differences between two bills -- it happens very similarly to what the President is engaged in now."

As these preliminary talks were beginning, the cable network C-Span, which covers congressional procedures, released an open letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) requesting that all important negotiations and conference committee meetings be open to electronic media coverage. "Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American," the letter stated.

In response, Senator Reid's office released a statement, saying in part: "Senator Reid appreciates C-SPAN's commitment to ensuring transparency and we will continue to fully comply with the longstanding precedents of open access to the work of Congress. The drafting of this health insurance reform bill has set new standards for transparency. As the C-SPAN letter states, there have been 'literally hundreds of hours of committee hearings, mark ups and floor debate on these bills'--and every one of those hours was broadcast across the country...But what should truly concern the American people is the Republicans' shamelessly transparent strategy to stop reform at all costs by relying on misinformation and myths. Their ploys are broadcast on C-SPAN for all of America to see, as much of it happens on the Senate floor."

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