Rahm Emanuel compares '93 and now

From NBC's Mark Murray Contrasting the differences between what happened in the early 1990s and what's happening now, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel -- who also worked in Bill Clinton's White House -- was optimistic about passing health-care reform this year. "We are in good shape," he told reporters in an off-camera breakfast meeting. The first difference, Emanuel said, was that the interest groups that helped defeat health reform in the '90s -- the doctors, the hospitals, the insurers -- are playing a constructive role in the reform. Second, he noted that the three House committees working on the legislation are all on the same page, unlike what happened 15 years ago. And third, he said the Obama administration was allowing Congress to draft the legislation, which didn't happen in the '90s. Yet in perhaps his most striking comments during the breakfast, Emanuel also observed this difference between now and then: fewer moderate Republicans, like the late Rhode Island Sen.  ... (link)