This morning, McJoan asks "Where is the White House on HCR?" (although I personally a more important and relevant question is where is the Senate and House?). Regardless, Kathleen Sebelius shines a light on that today:
Sebelius said that the president views the bipartisan meeting as a needed pivot to move reform forward. Asked if he will expedite the legislative process following his various sit-downs with congressional Republicans, she replied:
"I certainly think so. I think he sees this as a step to actually accelerating the process forward. He wants to move forward. He wants a bill at his desk and he sees this as kind of closing the loop and let's go."
In other words, Obama is going to use this summit to kick-start the process and move things forward. Most likely by setting a standard of achievement that no Republican proposal can meet, and demonstrating their unwillingness to actually compromise.
Will he cede to Republican calls to scrap everything and re-set?
President Obama is willing to "add various elements" to health care legislation suggested by Republican lawmakers during an upcoming bipartisan meeting on the topic. But he won't change the entire plan and he is "absolutely not" hitting the reset button on the legislative process, the former Kansas governor insisted.
To repeat: Obama will NOT hit the reset button on the process. As Ezra Klein points out, if Republicans wanted to own the content, they should have won the election:
Well, the best way to get to write the underlying legislation is to win the previous election, or maybe the election before that. And the second best way to write legislation is to have enough votes to block passage of the legislation the other party writes. But Republicans didn't win those elections and they don't have those votes. They've got the second-smallest minority in the Senate since the 1970s and they're down 40 seats in the House. It's neat how they think positive thoughts all the time, but the situation is what it is: They can write the legislation when the American people say they can.
The Republicans might want to act like they're the majority, but they remain the minority. That's why they're afraid of this summit: They know that the majority can still pass a bill, and it's in the majority's interests to pass a bill, and they want to keep that from happening. But they can't. Only the Democrats can.
What about the notion that Obama is willing to take elements from the GOP plans and put them in the bill? Well, he's probably talking about those that ideas that are already in it. Here's a good list of those already included.
We can spend all day reading tea-leaves on the WH, and it certainly seems like they've now settled on this summit as a way to kick-start the process and push it over the finish line.
But remember, the best thing to do is call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202)224-3121 and speak to your elected representatives in both houses and tell them to get this done. Obama will sign the bill, it's Congress that needs to get it done.