Obama is the real obstructionist at his health-care summit
By Marc Thiessen

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) says of this week's bipartisan health-care summit: "Sounds like the Democrats spell summit: S-E-T-U-P." He's right -- the Blair House summit is a trap. If the objective really was to produce bipartisan compromise, Obama would not be using legislation crafted in a backroom that got virtually no Republican votes as the basis for the discussions. Nor would his secretary of health and human services have declared last week that the White House is still willing to fight for a public option, a proposal that died because of bipartisan opposition in the Senate.

The president's real objective is to paint GOP leaders as obstructionists -- so that Democrats have an excuse to ram through their health-care legislation using extraordinary parliamentary procedures. Obstructionism has been Obama's mantra ever since Massachusetts GOP Sen. Scott Brown's election. Just last week in Denver, Obama declared that "for those who don't believe in government, those who don't believe that we have obligations to each other, it's a lot easier task. If you can gum up the works, if you make things broken, if the Senate doesn't get anything done, well, that's consistent with their philosophy." This is dishonest. Republicans have a robust health-care agenda, from health savings accounts, to association health plans, insurance portability, and medical liability reform.

What has gummed up the works over the past year has been the relentless partisanship of the Obama administration. Compare Obama's record to that of his immediate predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Both reached across the aisle in their first months to forge bipartisan coalitions on major issues. Clinton teamed with Republicans to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement; Bush worked with Ted Kennedy to pass the No Child Left Behind Act. Even the Bush tax cuts were bipartisan -- Bush made substantive concessions that brought one-quarter of Senate Democrats on board with his plan.

By contrast, Obama did not propose, much less secure passage of, a single major bipartisan initiative during his first year. Instead, backed by the largest Democratic majority in decades, he tried to pass a massive government intervention in health care along strict party lines. The last time Obama met with GOP leaders to discuss health-care legislation was in March of 2009 -- almost a year ago. This partisan approach backfired and sparked a popular backlash. But rather than tacking to the center, as Clinton did in similar circumstances, Obama is pressing ahead -- and the Blair House summit is the first step.

Republicans would play right into Obama's plans by refusing to attend -- giving him evidence to back his claim that they don't want to get anything done. GOP leaders have said the basis of the summit should be a clean sheet of paper where both sides can list the areas where they both agree -- and develop legislation enacting those areas of broad agreement. They should come to the summit with such a piece of paper, and this offer: "Mr. President, you say we agree on 80 percent of the issues, so let's pass that 80 percent solution right now."

If Obama refuses, he will make clear who the real obstructionist is.