FOR THE first time since the Senate approved a draft healthcare reform Bill on Christmas Eve, President Barack Obama has retaken possession of the issue by challenging Republicans to a half-day, televised debate on February 25th.
Republican leaders said they look forward to the session, which may take place at Blair House, the official state guesthouse, across from the White House. But the Senate and House Republican leaders called on Mr Obama to begin by scrapping draft Bills passed by Democrats last year, something the president will not consider.
Mr Obama appeared to have given up on healthcare after the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat was lost – and with it the Democrats’ filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority – last month. In his State of the Union address on January 27th, Mr Obama said jobs were his top priority, and mentioned healthcare only in passing.
A meeting between Mr Obama and Republicans at their retreat in Baltimore on January 29th was a turning point. Mr Obama departed from his usual scripted speeches and engaged in spirited repartee with Republicans, chiding them for portraying him as a socialist and healthcare reform as a “Bolshevik plot”. When asked if he had time to take more questions, the President said, “You know, I’m having fun.”
Mr Obama’s opponents have criticised him for breaking a campaign promise to broadcast last year’s healthcare debates. And, they claim, he did not try to involve Republicans in the reform. By calling for the February 25th healthcare summit, on primetime television just before the Super Bowl football championship on Sunday night, Mr Obama took the nation as his witness, and called the Republicans’ bluff.
He told CBS News he wanted to ask the Republicans: “How do you guys want to lower costs? How do you guys intend to reform the insurance market so that people with pre-existing conditions, for example, 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?”
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said Mr Obama should initiate dialogue “by shelving the current health spending Bill”. John Boehner, the House Republican leader, also called on the president to scrap the Bills voted by the House in November and the Senate in December “and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower healthcare costs and expand access”.
Democratic leaders were attempting to reconcile the Senate and House versions when Senator Kennedy’s former seat was lost to Republican Scott Brown, who spoke out against healthcare reform in his campaign.
The White House says Democrats will present a unified plan at the February 25th summit. A Democratic plan now circulating in Washington would ask the House to pass the Senate healthcare Bill.
Some provisions, in particular a tax on plans that could affect labour union members, and outlandish concessions to several Senators in exchange for their votes, are unacceptable to House Democrats. These might be modified in a “budget reconciliation Bill” that would be attached to the overall budget Bill to avoid a filibuster.