President Obama this past Sunday announced plans for a Health Care Summit in an interview with Katie Couric for CBS News.
This summit will be with the Republican leadership and it will be televised on C-SPAN, and will take place on February 25 at the Blair House across the street from the White house.
The Republican leadership is calling for the President to scrap both the House and Senate Bills that have been passed by both chambers of Congress, but the White house has said that President Obama has no plans for starting from square one.
President Obama said to Couric, “What I want to do is to look at the Republican ideas that are out there, and I want to be very specific: “How do you guys want to lower costs? How do you guys intend to reform the insurance market so people with preexisting conditions, for instance, can get health care? How do you want to make sure that the 30 million people who don’t have health insurance can get it — what are your ideas specifically?"
But the Republican responses to the summit have suggested that the only way the GOP will support Health Care Reform is if the President and the Democrats tear up their Bills and use the Republican ideas ONLY.
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) :
"After going it alone on health care reform for nearly a year, President Obama has decided he wants to bring Republicans into the conversation. Here’s the problem: unless the President and Speaker Pelosi are willing to scrap their government take over and hit the reset button, there’s not much to talk about."
"Republicans believe the status quo is unacceptable, but so is any health reform package that spends money we don’t have or raises taxes on small businesses and working families in a recession. To that point, House Republicans have offered the only plan, that will lower health care costs, which is what the President said was the goal at the start of this debate."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) :
"If we are to reach a bipartisan consensus, the White House can start by shelving the current health spending bill,"
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) :
"The best way to start on real, bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills," , the Washington Post reports.
It is astounding that the Republican leadership can look the camera in the lens and say that in order to get a BIPARTISAN consensus the Democrats and the President have to agree with their ideas only.
The summit between the President and the Republicans will certainly be good political theater and if this turns out like last months meeting at the GOP House Issues Conference in Baltimore, MD., the Republicans will again be seen as the obstructionists that they have shown themselves to be for the last year. They better come prepared and they better have some REAL ideas, otherwise they will be walking away with egg on their faces, again.
Katie Couric interview of President Barack Obama February 7, 2010:
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Comments
Did you see that friendly blue collar shirt the President is wearing I feel like he's connecting with me already. Now if only he would get his hand out of my health care and stop trying to steal some to give to undocumented workers. All these new patients and no new Doctors. Lets says it again NO NEW DOCTORS. How can anybody get better care or less expensive care. There is no help for Doctors.
Politics is not about finding a middle ground between right and wrong...it is about find our way to what's right. We have been on the path of slowly having evil shoved down our throats for about 40 years now. It is about time republicans started to wake up and smell the corruption and actually take a stand for what's right. Both sides of the aisle need a wide broom.
By the way...health care was not broken before the liberal media made a point of paving the road for Obama's plans to take it over in spite of the 10th amendment. For sure, it needed improvement. Hitler knew he could become dictator once he established control over health care in Germany. He did...and now you know the rest of the story.
I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth already. The whining is already unbearably loud.
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