February 25, 2010
Despite Obama’s Threat to Ditch Bipartisan Health Talks, Lawmakers Remain Divided
FOXNews.com
Yes sir Mr. President. Here is my lunch money for you to do whatever you please to do with it. (Typical liberal.)
WASHINGTON – President Obama ended Thursday’s White House summit by threatening to push for passage of health care reform without Republican support, and despite the daylong meeting with Democratic and Republican lawmakers, a a bipartisan agreement remained out of reach as lawmakers vowed to stick to their guns.
At the conclusion of the televised showdown, which was aimed at finding common ground between the two political parties, Obama said Republicans had only a matter of time to decide if they would jump onboard.
“If we’re unable to resolve differences over health care, we will need to move ahead on decisions,” he said, alluding to using reconciliation, a controversial maneuver that prevents a GOP filibuster by requiring only 51 votes to pass legislation.
Obama added that if voters are unhappy with results, then “that’s what elections are for.”
But Republican leaders expressed doubt after the meeting that a bipartisan agreement could be reached.
“It’s not going to be possible with that kind of an approach to come together within the timeframe that he indicated if he insists…on starting with this 2,700-page bill, then tweaking it to adopt some of our ideas,” said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No 2. Republican in the Senate.
“I don’t think there will be Republican support,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., flatly declared.
Democratic leaders, meanwhile, seemed eager to take the president up on his threat and abandon the prospect of a bipartisan bill.
“The president said we have to do something very soon and I agree with him,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. “We’re willing to work with him but time is of the essence. The American people waited five decades for this. It’s time we do something and we’re going to do it.”
The summit, in which three dozen lawmakers participated, made clear that both sides agreed that the health care system needed to be fixed, but they sharply diverged on how to do it.
Republicans remained adamant that their incremental approach reflected the will of the people and wouldn’t break the bank while Democrats insisted that sweeping health care reform was the only way to fix the system.
Yet Obama held out hope that the two parties could find common ground.
“I thought it was worthwhile for us to make the effort,” he said in his closing remarks. But he rejected the Republican argument to use a step-by-step approach.
“It turns out that baby steps don’t get you where you need to go,” he said. “If we saw significant movement, not just gestures, then you wouldn’t need to start over because everyone here knows what the issues,” he said. “We cannot have another yearlong debate on this.”
Republicans opened the summit by urging Obama to “start over” on health care reform and to renounce an unusual move to sidestep a GOP filibuster.
Democrats responded by repeatedly highlighting several points of agreement on health care reform with the GOP in an effort to show that it made no sense to start over again. They also cast the reform they want as critical to tackling an issue that is even more pressing to many Americans — the struggling economy.
Yet Democrats were unable to overcome the points of disagreement that prevented a bipartisan breakthrough.
Early on in the summit, the president clashed with Republicans over whether his health care proposal, which is modeled after the Senate version that passed on Christmas Eve, would lower premium rates.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said the Congressional Budget Office, which is the official scorekeeper on Capitol Hill legislation, noted that premiums will rise in the individual market under the Senate bill.
Obama shot back that Alexander’s claim was “not factually accurate,” arguing that premiums would go down 14 to 20 percent for families who keep their same coverage.
“What the Congressional Budget Office says is that because now they’ve got a better deal, because policies are cheaper, they may choose to buy better coverage than they do right now,” Obama said. “That might be 10 to 13 percent more expensive than the bad insurance they had previously.”
The heated exchange set the tone for a meeting that Democrats dominated by speaking for most of the morning session, according to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who at one point noted that Democrats had spoken for 56 minutes compared to 24 minutes for Republicans.
But Republicans used their limited time to repeatedly slam the Democratic health care bill, with a harsh critique coming from Sen. John McCain, Obama’s opponent in the 2008 presidential race.
McCain blasted the steps Democrats have taken over the past year to advance the legislation, including striking backroom deals with the drug manufacturing lobby, and other arrangements that favored certain states with reluctant Democratic senators.
“I hope that would be an argument for us to go through this 2,400-page document, remove all the special deals for the special interests that favor the few and treat all Americans the same … so that they will know that geography does not dictate what kind of health care they would receive,” McCain said.
Obama told McCain that they’re no longer campaigning.
“The election is over,” Obama said.
“I’m reminded of that every day,” McCain said with a laugh.
Throwing diplomacy to the wind, House Minority Leader John Boehner came out swinging during the second half of the summit, telling Obama that he believes the Democratic version of health care reform would “bankrupt our country” and is a “dangerous experiment.”
“We may have problems in our health care system but we do have the best health care system in the world by far and having the government take over health care… is a dangerous experiment with the best health care system in the world that I don’t think we should do.”