WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, after sustaining months of criticism for not being clear about what he wanted in health care legislation, will post specific proposals for a comprehensive plan on the Internet by Monday, according to the White House.
The posting would come three days before a high-stakes summit Obama plans to convene with congressional Democratic and GOP leaders in a bid to jump-start his stalled bid to overhaul the nation’s health care system with a new appeal for bipartisanship.
His plan is expected to include proposals to bridge differences between the two health care bills passed by the House and Senate last year. Administration officials and congressional Democrats are nearing such a compromise, according to Democratic officials.
It is still unclear what, if any, concessions the president will make to Republicans, who have steadfastly fought the Democratic health care campaign and are demanding that Obama abandon his push for an overhaul.
But the plan is likely to offer the most detailed vision yet of where the president stands on a number of health care issues that have divided Democrats, including how to pay for a major expansion of medical coverage.
Obama’s proposal may also represent the last, best hope for reviving his top domestic priority. After a year during which the president looked to congressional Democrats to develop health legislation, many are now looking to him to push it over the finish line after his party lost its Senate super majority following last month’s special election in Massachusetts.
“There will be one proposal. It is the president’s,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday while unveiling a new report highlighting large premium increases by insurance companies nationwide, including California-based Anthem Blue Cross.
“I think the idea is that it will take some of the best of the ideas (from the House and Senate bills) and put them into a framework moving forward,” Sebelius said.
In recent days, Sebelius and other Democratic officials have been stepping up their attacks on the insurance industry as they labor to convince Americans of the need for a comprehensive health care bill.
Obama, in a letter inviting congressional leaders to the summit, indicated that his legislative proposal would “put a stop to insurance company abuses, extend coverage to millions of Americans, get control of skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket costs and reduce the deficit.”
Obama also challenged congressional Republicans to come forward with their own alternative.
House Republicans have proposed a more limited health care bill that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated would control premiums but would do almost nothing to expand coverage over the next decade.
Senate Republican leaders have not developed an alternative. “We will not be offering a comprehensive bill,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., citing public anxiety about sweeping health care legislation.
Michael Franc, who oversees government relations for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Republicans would be wise to steer clear of any public negotiating over health care legislation with the president, suggesting instead that they stick to their demand that the Democratic bills be scrapped.
“The last thing Republican leadership wants is to get drawn into something that upsets their base,” Franc said.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and his No. 2, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., have asked the White House for an assurance that the president is prepared to “start over.” Administration officials have rejected that.
Instead, senior Democrats plan to outline a proposal that hews closely to the legislation Democrats developed last year that would expand coverage to some 30 million people over the next decade, dramatically increase regulation of the insurance industry and cost around $900 billion.
To get the proposal through Congress, Democrats in the House likely will have to vote on the health care bill that the Senate approved last year on a party-line vote.
Both the House and Senate would also vote on a package of changes to the bill using a process known as budget reconciliation that requires only a simple majority in the Senate. That package of changes, which has been the subject of intense negotiations for more than a month, is almost finalized, according to Democratic officials.
