Leading up to what the White House hopes will be a bipartisan summit to advance the cause of health care reform, House Republican leaders are calling on President Barack Obama to abandon the bills passed by the House and Senate.
In a letter to the White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the GOP whip, called on the White House to start over on health reform proposals.
The Republicans said that would be the only way for Obama to demonstrate his sincerity about moving forward in a bipartisan fashion, hinting that they may boycott the session otherwise.
"If the starting point for this meeting is the job-killing bills the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate," they wrote.
Boehner and Cantor also demanded that Obama publicly commit to not use the budget reconciliation process, which would circumvent a senate filibuster, to advance the legislation.
Some health reform proponents, faced with the loss of the 60th Democratic vote in the Massachusetts special election, had proposed advancing the measure by having the House pass the Senate version of the reform bill with the promise of making changes through budget reconciliation, which would require only a simple majority.
"Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan way, does that mean he has taken off the table the idea of relying solely on Democratic votes and jamming through health care reform by way of reconciliation," Boehner and Cantor wrote. "Eliminating the possibility of reconciliation would represent an important show of good faith to Republicans and the American people."
Boehner and Cantor also called on Obama to open the session to state leaders, especially those that have opposed the mandate to purchase insurance, and asked if they would be allowed to invite their own health care reform experts to advance their proposed solutions.
"Your answers to these critical questions will help determine whether this will be a truly open, bipartisan discussion or merely an intramural exercise before Democrats attempt to jam through a job-killing health care bill that the American people can't afford and don't support," they wrote. "These questions are also designed to try and make sense of the widening gap between the President's rhetoric on bipartisanship and the reality."
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated Obama's desire for a bipartisan discussion of reform proposals.
"The President is adamant that we seize this historic moment to pass meaningful health insurance reform legislation," Gibbs wrote in response to the GOP letter. "He began this process by inviting Republican and Democratic leaders to the White House on March 5 of last year, and he's continued to work with both parties in crafting the best possible bill."
Gibbs added, "He's been very clear about his support for the House and Senate bills because of what they achieve for the American people: putting a stop to insurance company abuses, extending coverage to millions of hardworking Americans, getting control of rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs, and reducing the deficit."
However, Gibbs said that the recent news that Anthem Blue Cross plans to increase premiums by nearly 40 percent is a "stark reminder" that doing nothing should not be an option.
"The President looks forward to reviewing Republican proposals that meet the goals he laid out at the beginning of this process, and as recently as the State of the Union Address," Gibbs said. "He's open to including any good ideas that stand up to objective scrutiny."
Gibbs added, "What he will not do, however, is walk away from reform and the millions of American families and small business counting on it."
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