In a make or break move, President Barack Obama on Friday challenged three dozen Republicans and Democrats to participate in a one-of-a-kind televised summit this month to thrash out a deal on health care.

House Republicans immediately greeted the invite to the Feb. 25 event with derision, casting doubt on whether it would yield any bipartisan agreement to extend coverage to millions of Americans and rein in medical costs. “We need answers before we know if the White House is more interested in partisan theater than in facilitating a productive dialogue about solutions,” said Kevin Smith, a spokesman for House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was more receptive, saying he would work with the White House “to maximize the effectiveness of the meeting.”

The summit is considered a last, best attempt to revive Obama’s yearlong quest, now stalled after Democrats lost their filibuster-proof Senate majority. Yet since Obama proposed the summit last weekend, Republicans and Democrats have voiced skepticism, with some in the GOP wondering if it would be nothing but a spectacle that could benefit the president at their expense.

By presiding over a meeting with three dozen lawmakers trying to get a word in edgewise, Obama may be able to dominate the conversation and the visual images. That’s what many Democrats say he did at a Jan. 29 session when he faced a roomful of GOP House members in Baltimore, controlling the microphone for much of the event.

The Baltimore event proved riveting for many Americans because it ranged over many topics and included numerous moments of partisan sparring. A half-day televised session on the complexities of health care may prove much less inviting to the average viewer.

In its invitation, the White House argued that remaking health care was imperative, and Obama challenged Democrats and Republicans to come up with comprehensive bills before the Blair House event — legislation that would be posted online.

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MINNEAPOLIS — President Barack Obama assailed critics of his health care initiative Saturday, seeking to grab the megaphone from his opponents and boost momentum in his drive for congressional passage of his chief domestic priority.

“I will not accept the status quo. Not this time. Not now,” the president told an estimated 15,000 people during a rally that had every feel of a campaign event, right down to chants of “Fired up, ready to go!” and “Yes, we can!”

Days after urging Democrats and Republicans in Congress to come together, an invigorated Obama said his plan incorporates ideas from those on both sides and he promised to continue to seek common ground.

“If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open,” the president said.

But he warned that he wouldn’t waste time with people who have decided “that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it.” He also said he wouldn’t stand by while special interests “use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are.” And he warned, “If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.”

The pitch came in friendly territory. Democratic-leaning Minnesota is one of the nation’s healthiest states, with relatively few uninsured residents, cost-effective medical care and top health care providers such as the Mayo Clinic.

His speech at Target Center was part of a weekend campaign by the White House to give the president as much exposure as possible after his prime-time address Wednesday to Congress.

At the rally, on network television and in his weekend radio and Internet address, Obama again sought to take the reins of the debate, a task that has proved elusive over the past three months. The challenge is to both energize his supporters and make people with insurance care about his proposal.

In Minnesota, he portrayed his proposal as a benefit to more people by arguing that chances are anyone could lack insurance for at least a little while.

He cited a new Treasury Department analysis that found that nearly half of all people under age 65 go without health coverage at some point in a 10-year period. The data came from a study that tracked the insurance status of a sample of people from 1997-2006.

The report also found that 57 percent of those under 21 will find themselves without insurance at some point during a span of 10 years and that more than one-third of Americans will be without coverage for a year or more.

The speech largely tracked the one days earlier on Capitol Hill, and he tore into opponents who he claimed were spreading rumors designed to scare people as they try to “bring Obama down.”

The president said he wants to see a government-run option in the plan and remains open on “how to set this up.” He stressed it would be one of many options for people seeking affordable care and no one would be forced to choose it.

In a CBS’ “60 Minutes” interview to air Sunday night, Obama said he’s focused on overhauling health care the right way. “I have no interest in having a bill get passed that fails. That doesn’t work,” he said.

He added: “I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it.” And if it doesn’t work, Obama said: I’m the one who’s going to be held responsible. So I have every incentive to get this right.”

While the president cleared out of town, thousands of people marched along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to protest Obama’s approach on health care and what they say is out-of-control federal spending. At the protest, people chanted “enough, enough” and “We the people” and carried signs that said “Obamacare makes me sick” and “I’m Not Your ATM.”

In the weekly Republican address, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Obama has paid lip service to bipartisanship, rejected ideas that would bring the parties together around overhauling the system and ignored the American people’s wishes. He criticized the cost and its long-term effect on the budget deficit, saying one of the House bills works out to $2.4 trillion over 10 years, beginning in 2013.

Obama puts the cost of his plan at $900 billion for the period starting in 2010, when more revenue will be available right away.

Said Cornyn: “President Obama should work with Republicans on a bottom-up solution that the American people can support.”

MINNEAPOLIS — President Barack Obama assailed critics of his health care initiative Saturday, seeking to grab the megaphone from his opponents and boost momentum in his drive for congressional passage of his chief domestic priority.

“I will not accept the status quo. Not this time. Not now,” the president told an estimated 15,000 people during a rally that had every feel of a campaign event, right down to chants of “Fired up, ready to go!” and “Yes, we can!”

Days after urging Democrats and Republicans in Congress to come together, an invigorated Obama said his plan incorporates ideas from those on both sides and he promised to continue to seek common ground.

“If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open,” the president said.

But he warned that he wouldn’t waste time with people who have decided “that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it.” He also said he wouldn’t stand by while special interests “use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are.” And he warned, “If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.”

The pitch came in friendly territory. Democratic-leaning Minnesota is one of the nation’s healthiest states, with relatively few uninsured residents, cost-effective medical care and top health care providers such as the Mayo Clinic.

His speech at Target Center was part of a weekend campaign by the White House to give the president as much exposure as possible after his prime-time address Wednesday to Congress.

At the rally, on network television and in his weekend radio and Internet address, Obama again sought to take the reins of the debate, a task that has proved elusive over the past three months. The challenge is to both energize his supporters and make people with insurance care about his proposal.

In Minnesota, he portrayed his proposal as a benefit to more people by arguing that chances are anyone could lack insurance for at least a little while.

He cited a new Treasury Department analysis that found that nearly half of all people under age 65 go without health coverage at some point in a 10-year period. The data came from a study that tracked the insurance status of a sample of people from 1997-2006.

The report also found that 57 percent of those under 21 will find themselves without insurance at some point during a span of 10 years and that more than one-third of Americans will be without coverage for a year or more.

The speech largely tracked the one days earlier on Capitol Hill, and he tore into opponents who he claimed were spreading rumors designed to scare people as they try to “bring Obama down.”

The president said he wants to see a government-run option in the plan and remains open on “how to set this up.” He stressed it would be one of many options for people seeking affordable care and no one would be forced to choose it.

In a CBS’ “60 Minutes” interview to air Sunday night, Obama said he’s focused on overhauling health care the right way. “I have no interest in having a bill get passed that fails. That doesn’t work,” he said.

He added: “I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it.” And if it doesn’t work, Obama said: I’m the one who’s going to be held responsible. So I have every incentive to get this right.”

While the president cleared out of town, thousands of people marched along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to protest Obama’s approach on health care and what they say is out-of-control federal spending. At the protest, people chanted “enough, enough” and “We the people” and carried signs that said “Obamacare makes me sick” and “I’m Not Your ATM.”

In the weekly Republican address, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Obama has paid lip service to bipartisanship, rejected ideas that would bring the parties together around overhauling the system and ignored the American people’s wishes. He criticized the cost and its long-term effect on the budget deficit, saying one of the House bills works out to $2.4 trillion over 10 years, beginning in 2013.

Obama puts the cost of his plan at $900 billion for the period starting in 2010, when more revenue will be available right away.

Said Cornyn: “President Obama should work with Republicans on a bottom-up solution that the American people can support.”

Associated Press

By ROSS DOUTHAT
Throughout the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama’s most loyal constituencies were the national press corps and the left wing of the Democratic Party.
Those on the left loved him because they thought he was one of them. They tolerated all the happy talk about bipartisanship because they were sure that deep in his community-organizing heart Obama shared their premises, their passions and their goals.

The media loved him because he was a great story and a great campaigner. The press favors dreamy liberals, but it worships success, and Obama was the best of both worlds — a soaring rhetorician with a ruthlessly competent political machine.

But now both groups are turning on him. As the health care debate enters its decisive weeks, the left doubts President Obama’s commitment, and the press doubts his competence.

For MSNBC-watching, Huffington Post-devouring liberals, the administration’s fancy footwork on a public health care plan (maybe it’s out, maybe it’s in, but either way it’s negotiable) is just the latest example of the president’s unseemly unwillingness to steamroll the opposition. He has been too solicitous to Republicans, too hands-off with Democrats, too detached and technocratic — even as a once-in-a-generation opportunity is passing liberalism by.

Where the left sees betrayal, the press sees ham-fistedness. The White House’s messages have been mixed — fiscal hawkery one day, moralism the next. The administration has allowed distractions like the Skip Gates affair to crowd out his agenda. It has overlearned the lessons of the Clinton-care debacle and given Congress too much leeway. It has underlearned the lessons of the Bush-era Social Security debacle and gone to war before there’s an actual piece of legislation on the table.

Some of this is true — but some of it is overstated. And at its worst, it’s an example of the bipartisan derangement that Gene Healy of the Cato Institute has dubbed “the cult of the presidency.”

To the disciples of this cult, the president is the government. “He is a soul nourisher,” Healy writes, “a hope giver, a living American talisman against hurricanes, terrorism, economic downturns and spiritual malaise.” Anything that happens on his watch happens because of him. And just as important, anything that doesn’t happen can be pinned entirely on his mistakes.

President Obama has been turning these quasi-messianic expectations to his advantage since he first entered national politics. But that doesn’t make them any less unrealistic.

To listen to the chatter about where his administration has gone wrong, you would think that the rest of the Democratic Party had no agency — that Democratic office-holders are slaves to poll numbers that only the White House can control, and that the way a Max Baucus, a Ben Nelson or a Blanche Lincoln votes is entirely determined by whether the president of the United States twists the right arms and hits the right rhetorical notes.

In reality, the health care wrestling match is less a test of Mr. Obama’s political genius than it is a test of the Democratic Party’s ability to govern. This is not the Reagan era, when power in Washington was divided, and every important vote required the president to leverage his popularity to build trans-party coalitions. Fox News and Sarah Palin have soapboxes, but they don’t have veto power. Mr. Obama could be a cipher, a nonentity, a Millard Fillmore or a Franklin Pierce, and his party would still have the power to pass sweeping legislation without a single Republican vote.

What’s more, health care reform is the Democratic Party’s signature issue. Its wonks have thought longer and harder about it than any other topic. Its politicians are vastly better at talking about the subject than Republicans: if an election is fought over health care, bet on the Democrat every time. And for all the complexity involved, it’s arguably easier to tackle than other liberal priorities. It’s more popular than cap and trade, it’s less likely to split the party than immigration and it’s more amenable to technocratic interventions than income inequality.

If the Congressional Democrats can’t get a health care package through, it won’t prove that President Obama is a sellout or an incompetent. It will prove that Congress’s liberal leaders are lousy tacticians, and that its centrist deal-makers are deal-makers first, poll watchers second and loyal Democrats a distant third. And it will prove that the Democratic Party is institutionally incapable of delivering on its most significant promises.

You have to assume that on some level Congress understands this — which is why you also have to assume that some kind of legislation will eventually pass.

If it doesn’t, President Obama will have been defeated. But it’s the party, not the president, that will have failed.
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Don’t Blame Obama

The White House wants to make something perfectly clear: The public option is still on the health care negotiating table.

“The goal is choice and competition” among health insurance plans, spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters this morning.”The preference is the public option.”

Gibbs denounced reports that the administration may drop its support for a publicly funded insurance option because of intense opposition. He attributed the reports to a media “overreaction” after the comment by Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that a public option is not “essential” to a health care plan.

Obama himself stoked commentary with his statement Saturday that “the public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform.”

Whether the White House was sending signals or not, liberal Democrats made their own position very clear: The public option is essential to any health care plan designed to cover all Americans.

Yet Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., says there aren’t the votes for it in the Senate. Republicans and some conservative Democrats describe the public option as a gateway to a government-run, single-payer plan.

Bottom line: It’s tough to negotiate a complex piece of legislation in public. The administration obviously doesn’t want to deal through the media or drop a key provision before Congress returns from August recess.
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Obama still prefers public option, White House says

WASHINGTON – Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, a leading figure in the liberal wing of his party, said Monday he doubts there can be meaningful health care reform without a direct government role.

Dean urged the Obama administration to stand by statements made early on in the debate in which it steadfastly insisted that such a public option was indispensable to genuine change, saying that Medicare and the Veterans Administration are “two very good programs that have been around for a long time.”

Dean appeared on morning news shows Monday amid increasing indications the Obama White House is retreating from the public option in the face of vocal opposition from Republicans and some vocal participants at a town-hall-style meetings around the country.

The former Vermont governor was asked on NBC’s “Today” show about President Barack Obama‘s statement over the weekend that the public option for insurance coverage was “just a sliver” of the overall proposal. Obama’s health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, advanced that line, telling CNN Sunday that a direct government role in a system intended to provide virtually universal coverage was “not the essential element.”

Dean, a physician, argued that a public option is fair and said there must be such a choice in any genuine shake up of the existing system.

“You can’t really do health reform without it,” he said. Dean maintained that the health insurance industry has “put enormous pressure on patients and doctors” in recent years.

He called a direct government role “the entirety of health care reform. It isn’t the entirety of insurance reform … We shouldn’t spend $60 billion a year subsidizing the insurance industry.”

Dean also said he doesn’t foresee any Republican support for a public option. “I don’t think the Republicans are interested and in order to have a bipartisan bill, you’ve got to have both sides interested,” he said.

The shift in the administration’s stance on a government-run insurance program leaves open a chance for compromise with Republicans that probably would enrage Obama’s liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., who is co-chairman of the Middle Class Caucus, said that “leaving private insurance companies the job of controlling the costs of health care is like making a pyromaniac the fire chief.”

Officials from both political parties are looking for concessions while Congress is on an August recess. Facing tough audiences, lawmakers and the White House are looking for a way to cover the nation’s almost 50 million uninsured while maintaining political standing.

Sebelius said the White House would be open to co-ops instead of a public option — a sign that Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory.

Under a proposal by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., consumer-owned nonprofit cooperatives would sell insurance in competition with private industry, not unlike the way electric and agriculture co-ops operate, especially in rural states such as his own.

With $3 billion to $4 billion in initial support from the government, the co-ops would operate under a national structure with state affiliates, but independent of the government. They would be required to maintain the type of financial reserves that private companies are required to keep in case of unexpectedly high claims.

“I think there will be a competitor to private insurers,” Sebelius said. “That’s really the essential part, is you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing.”

Obama’s spokesman refused to say a public option was a make-or-break choice.
Former Gov. Dean calls public option indispensable

Grand Junction, Colo. » President Obama is taking his fight for health care reform to the people.

And he’s doing it in Republican strongholds like this city, where skeptics of any kind of government intervention in the nation’s health care system are aplenty.

“What I hear from people is that we have excellent health care now,” said Dennis White, a spokesman for the Western Slope Conservative Alliance, which rallied against the president’s plan Saturday. “We don’t want some health care czar imposing himself or intruding on that relationship with our insurance companies, our doctors and ourselves. So I’d say it’s overwhelmingly unpopular in this area.”

that said “Hands off my healthcare,” “No more deficit spending,” “Free to choose no public option” and opposing “Government-run healthcare,” people gathered at Lincoln Park and the Mesa County Courthouse said they want health care reform — just not Obama’s way.

“It’s moving way too fast,” said Stella Lightfoot, a 55-year-old breast cancer survivor who drove from Moab to rally. “The spending is out of control. It’s putting our kids and grandkids in debt. It’s got to stop.”

So, in a packed Central High School Warriors gym Saturday, the president tried to frame the debate this way: The country is going broke. With Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security making up about two-thirds of the federal budget, getting a handle on

soaring health care costs is the only way to get back in the black.

“If you are a fiscal hawk — if you are deficit hawk — and you are tired of this crazy spending in Washington, and you finally want to make sure we are looking out for the next generation, then you more than anybody should want to reform the health care system,” he said.

While the recovery plan has helped boost the economy through tax cuts, the extension of unemployment benefits and an infusion of cash to states facing historic budget shortfalls, it isn’t enough, the president said.

“We’ve got to lay a new foundation for a new economy,” Obama said, “and health insurance reform is a key pillar of this new economy.”

What he is proposing, Obama said, isn’t a government-run health system.

Instead, he is pushing for a common sense set of consumer protections for health insurance. Most people would still get their coverage through their employers. The difference is insurance companies wouldn’t be able to arbitrarily cap coverage or charge outrageous out-of-pocket fees on top of premiums. The president told the story of one couple who hit their maximum lifetime coverage in just one year after their son was diagnosed with leukemia. As a result, the boy wasn’t able to get a life-saving bone marrow transplant and died.

“If you think that can’t happen to you and your family, think again,” Obama said.

About 90 percent of insured Americans have lifetime limits under $3 million. On top of that, he said, their insurance premiums have doubled at the same time their out-of-pocket costs have increased by 50 percent.

“Nobody is holding these insurance companies accountable for these practices,” he said.

His proposed health reform plan would work like this: If you like your insurance plan, you’ll be able to keep it, he said. Or you can choose a plan through a national insurance exchange, a marketplace where you can go online and select a plan from a menu. Insurance carriers who sell plans through the exchange would be subject to government regulations — such as not being able to deny coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions — and would have to compete with a public option. The idea, Obama said, is that a government-run not-for-profit would “keep insurance companies honest.”

Addressing concerns from the audience that a public option might dismantle the private insurance market, Obama explained that it would not be subsidized with taxpayer dollars. Likewise, it would not receive any special government rates on capital and would have to negotiate its rates just like any other carrier.

Employers, meanwhile, would receive tax incentives for providing insurance to their workers. If they don’t, they would have to pay into the system.

The cost of doing all of this is hefty — about $900 billion over the next 10 years, the president said. Two-thirds of that cost would be paid for by eliminating waste in the health care system. The rest will be covered by capping itemized deductions at 28 percent for people whose incomes are more than $250,000.

For people like Katie Henson, 25, the president’s town hall meeting crystallized the debate.

“I think it helped clear up a lot of issues,” she said, “especially about health insurance being taken away from people who already have it, and just about like the government taking over.”

Henson, who along with her husband was uninsured for three years, racked up medical bills paying for emergencies. Her 2-year-old daughter was on Medicaid.

Now insured through her husband’s employer, Henson said, “I think it (Obama’s health reform plan) will be good for families like us, who spend almost 25 percent of our income just on health insurance.”

As the health reform effort gains momentum, Obama said, opponents are ramping up their efforts to derail it. But he argued that hope must prevail over fear.

The current health care system is “hurting too many families and businesses,” Obama said. “It’s wrong and we’re going to fix it when we pass health insurance reform this year.”

But Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, is skeptical.

“I think he knows his plan is in trouble,” said Chaffetz, who spoke at the Lincoln Park rally. “I think America from coast to coast is rising up and saying, ‘No.’ Last time I saw this happen was immigration. It surprised Washington, D.C. If he’s truly listening, he’s going to find the masses are not in favor of this plan.”
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Obama takes case to critics