By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
The White House has announced plans to host a half-day bipartisan session on health care reform that will be televised on C-SPAN, a concept many believe is little more than a political ploy by liberal lawmakers to repair their tarnished image.
The President announced the summit, to be held on Feb. 25, during a pre-game interview with CBS’ Katie Couric just prior to the Super Bowl, which allowed him to take advantage of a huge television audience.
“I want to consult closely with our Republican colleagues,” Obama told Couric. “What I want to do is to ask them to put their ideas on the table… I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward.”
Republicans are delighted with the plan. In a statement, House Republican leader John Boehner said he is “pleased that the White House finally seems interested in a real, bipartisan conversation on health care. The American people have overwhelmingly rejected both of the job-killing trillion-dollar government takeover of health care bills passed by the House and Senate. The problem with the Democrats’ health care bills is not that the American people don’t understand them; the American people do understand them, and they don’t like them.”
He added: “The best way to start on real, bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower health care costs and expand access.”
However, Obama aides told The Washington Post they have no intention of starting over and that the president intends to come to the meeting armed with whatever plan the House and Senate has been able to piece together from their conflicting bills.
“This is not starting over,” one White House official said. “Don’t make any mistake about that. We are coming with our plan. They can bring their plan.”
Insiders say the Democrats are just as frustrated with the President as the Republicans are about how to proceed with health care reform. Politico.com is reporting that many Democrats have expressed confusion over the White House’s inconsistent statements over the last few weeks and Obama’s hands-off approach, which leaves them without the leadership they expected on this contentious issue.
Since the loss of their super-majority in the Senate with the victory of Republican Senator Scott Brown over the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, Obama aides have discussed breaking the bill into smaller parts, ways to keep it together in one comprehensive package, whether or not to put it aside for awhile or keep trying to “ram it through” Congress.
At present, the Obama administration says their plan is to restart the health care debate, but to do it in a much more transparent fashion, beginning with the Feb. 25 session.
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