Obama rejects starting over on health care

President Obama on Tuesday said he is open to working with Republicans on a health care reform deal but said he is unwilling to start the legislative process over from scratch, instead arguing that on health care and much of his agenda the GOP minority is going to have to accept some ideas it does not like.

In an abbreviated, unannounced press conference — his first since July — Mr. Obama told reporters in the White House briefing room that he was willing to listen to Republican ideas and that he’s already taken steps by proposing cooperation on nuclear energy and expanded drilling for oil and gas. But the president said bipartisanship will require Republicans to swallow some bitter pills.

On health care in particular, Mr. Obama said he will accept ideas at the upcoming half-day summit later this month but doesn’t want to scrap the months of negotiations, hearings and deals that have already produced bills that passed the House and Senate late last year.

“What I will not do, what I don’t think makes sense and I don’t think the American people want to see, would be another year of partisan wrangling around these issues, another six months’ or eight months’ or nine months’ worth of hearings in every single committee in the House and the Senate in which there’s a lot of posturing,” he said.

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• GOP skeptical of Obama’s health care summit

After meeting with Mr. Obama this morning in a bipartisan meeting of ways to boost jobs, Republicans said they were wary of the Feb. 25 health care summit and said they’re looking for assurances Mr. Obama will include state and business officials who also will be affected by the proposed overhaul. They also pushed Mr. Obama not to try to revive the health care bills Democrats had been working on, saying those measures had been rejected by voters.

“It is in the interest of the minority in the Congress to reach out, and we have continued to. But what we want to say is this: We’re not interested in a dog-and-pony show to trumpet failed bills that, in fact, the Democrats can’t even pass right now. We’re not interested in that because the American people aren’t, either,” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican, said.

Mr. Obama acknowledged that Americans have “soured” on the health care reform effort, but he said that was more a result of the messy negotiating process in Congress than the substance of the Senate and House bills.

“The public has soured on the process that they saw over the last year. I think that actually contaminates how they view the substance of the bill,” Mr. Obama said. “I think it’s important for all of these issues to be aired, so that people have confidence if we’re moving forward on such a significant part of the economy as health care, that there is complete transparency and all of these issues have been adequately vetted and adequately debated.”

Mr. Obama also attacked what he described as inaccurate portrayals of bipartisanship.

“Bipartisanship can’t be that I agree to all of the things that they believe in or want and they agree to none of the things I believe in or want, and that’s the price of bipartisanship, right? But that’s sometimes the way it gets presented,” he said.

The pressure has been on the Democrats to reach out to Republicans — who have opposed just about every major piece of Mr. Obama’s agenda — now that Democrats no longer have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Mr. Obama’s announcement Sunday of a televised, bipartisan summit on Feb. 25 is his first major attempt to revive the health care effort, which has stalled after Republican Sen. Scott Brown’s victory in last month’s Massachusetts special election.

Mr. Obama said he hopes the meeting “doesn’t end up being political theater,” but didn’t directly address concerns expressed by House Republicans over who else will be invited.

“Let’s establish some common facts. Let’s establish what the issues are, what the problems are, and let’s test out in front of the American people what ideas work and what ideas don’t. And, you know, if we can establish that factual accuracy about how different approaches would work, then I think we can make some progress,” he said.

Mr. Obama said the two parties may find common ground in another area ahead of the health care summit — jobs. He said Republicans could support parts of the jobs bill now being negotiated on Capitol Hill including the elimination of capital gains taxes for small businesses.

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