White House Asks GOP To Come To Health Care Summit With A Plan

"The President will then open and moderate discussion on four critical topics: insurance reforms, cost containment, expanding coverage, and the impact health reform legislation will have on deficit reduction," Emanuel and Sebelius wrote in their letter, which you can read in full here."

GAWD!!! Let's see, when Bill Clinton went to the hospital yesterday did it have anything to do with insurance reform, coverage cost containemnt, or the deficit? No, I think we were talking about his healthCARE.

Lord deliver us from centrists selling right-wing dogma.

So the R's will have to bring a plan? No problem. Theirs can fit on a post-it note.

There's only one thing that could go wrong here: congressional Dems are participating. Hopefully, Rahm will have made it clear to them that their role is to sit down, shut up, and follow the President's lead.

Sure sounds like a trap to me.
I wonder how Boehner and his Republican buddies will look, hanging upside down snared by their ankles in Pres. Obama's trap ?
Is it then he will turn the tigers loose on them ?

We should be talking about the most significant domestic legislation in 45 years and instead we have Kabuki theater to arrange a compromise to fall somewhere between Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

"The President will then open and moderate discussion on four critical topics: insurance reforms, cost containment, expanding coverage, and the impact health reform legislation will have on deficit reduction,"

Well, at least they aren't pretending healthCARE is part of the discussion. CARE isn't even among the four critical topics.

And you wonder why the American people KNOW they are being sold down the river.

It is much easier to scare people than it is to educate them. The whole idea of a Democracy is to have a hopefully educated populace vote. The GOP plan is to scare everybody, which is much easier.

Death panels. Death taxes. It is pretty obvious; the GOP plan is to scare people so that the rich people can stay rich.

Times are really bad, so we can't afford to risk trying something different than what got us here.

"President Obama will ask Republicans to present their own comprehensive plan"

That's great, it blows their excuse for not showing up. They want to start from scratch. OK, knock yourself out. Knowing they won't have any new ideas, dems can be armed with the facts why their plan won't work. Then they will be forced to tell the President to his face that he wants to pull the plug on grandma. Yes, it is a trap, It's a trap that the GOP built and set. They wanted their plan and they wanted TV cameras for the American people to see, they just didn't want anyone to dispute them. They prefer dictatorship rather than democracy. This will show the Party of No has nothing to offer voters.

I hope Obama makes the point how many lives are lost without insurance and the uninsured is twice as likely to die in the ER. He needs to put the real human factor on this legislation. He then needs to highlight the recent premium hikes and insurance companies record profits.

Item 1:
 “A mere seven months ago (that would be around June 2009), The New York Times/CBS poll found that 72% of Americans ‘supported a government-administered insurance plan—something like Medicare for those under 65—that would compete for customers with private insurers.’”

Item 2: As of February 2010, Mandated premium payments to private sector insurers, tax money to private sector insurers, stipulations making it legal for insurers to spend only 80 cents of every 100 cents on actual health care while spending 20 cents of every 100 cents on lobbying, 'sympathetic' candidates, CEO bonuses, 'administration' and fighting your claim for treatment, no single payer health care reform, no 'government option',

Item 3: Other than Pharma and the insurance industry - those who created the sop for themselves - no one (say 72%) supports this charade.

Question: What is likely to be accomplished at the 'summit'?

Answer: Complete vassalage of the middle class to the insurance industry by limiting all malpractice suits and awards - completing the picture by mandating us to pay insurance companies, fining us if we dont, allowing companies to spend 20% of our money on 'administration' (i.e. fighting our claims, lobbying, donating to candidates who support them, etc), and then protecting insurers from any malpractice claims, thereby baring us from protecting ourselves in court from insurers' errors, omissions, mistakes and malfeasance.

So, you want and health care 'summit' to finish off any rights you may have remaining ?
Do not suport the 'summit charade'!

The reason citizens and the public interest have not been served by the Democrats over the last year is that the Democrats are controlled by the same interests that controlled Bush.

The interests in control remain in control (witness the last 12 months) whether the Republicans or the Democrats are in the majority , whether there is a Republican or Democratic President (witness the last 12 months).

This is the condition of our country and there appears to be nothing that can be done about it.

We mistook Obama for a leader, but that was obvious our own self-delusion. We thought the Democrats would govern in the public interest - delusion or wishful thinking.

The last year has confirmed the assertions of the most cynical: Of our Democracy, only a charade remains.

Here we are again.

All discussion about HCR will be reduced to rants about Rahm.

I wonder if the Right has not figured out the utterly predictable arguments and hyperbolic language of the "nothing if not change in one, fell swoop" FDL contingent - and comment so that people get distracted (is any of this about one person - r. emanuel???).

But wait: Don't need mimicry from the Right. We've got the ever helpful HuffPost.

I agree with Jeronimo Dan and, to that end, I think that one of: Tom Daschle, Jeanne M. Lambrew, Scott S. Greenberger (who wrote the outstanding book Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis) should be invited to attend, if not speak. We need a Federal Health Care Board, comparable to the Federal Reserve. Plucky though they may be, the Congress is ill-equipped to handle health care. At best - and I think history bears this out - they get rolled by lobbyists for various constituencies. Health care needs to be removed from the political process.

It's kind of funny that the White House has to ask them to come with a plan in the first place. Like if they wouldn't have asked, the GOOP would have brought Yo-Yo's or Swastikas.

Republicans are probably wise to be wary. Keep in mind that Obama will be the most popular person in the room by a long shot. Look at the approval ratings for Congress and individual Congressional leaders. They are truly abysmal, particularly on the Republican side. Obama has set up the debate so he both leads, moderates, and pontificates as much as he wants.